


Hive John- Addition

by puddlejumper38



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Bug!John, M/M, Transformation, Wraith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-01-26 18:30:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1698311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puddlejumper38/pseuds/puddlejumper38
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An addition to LitGal's Hive John which fits in after chapter two. LitGal kindly left the story open for other authors to write more of it and so I came up with this. LitGal then very kindly gave me permission to post it here.</p>
<p>Note: This continues on directly from chapter 2 of Hive John by LitGal. If you haven't read it, then this will make no sense at all. I recommend it though, if you're prepared for a bit of a dark read.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LitGal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LitGal/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Hive John](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1675667) by [LitGal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LitGal/pseuds/LitGal). 



> I have never attempted to add to another authors work before, and I sincerely hope I have done Hive John justice here. I don't know if I'll be able to finish this, but I hope to go further with it. 
> 
> All credit to LitGal for the concept :)

There had been a complete lack of activity for the last day, no visitors beyond the infirmary staff. Even Carson had hardly been there. John found himself surprised at it. He’d fully expected to have been shifted back to the cell as soon as they’d determined his wounds weren’t fatal. At the very least he’d expected more visitors, he’s been hoping for a few more scientists. The more people to spread the infection the better and he’d thought more scientists would want to ask about Rodney. Maybe Miko, she’d always liked Rodney.

He felt Rodney briefly acknowledge Miko- Rodney thought she’d make a good addition to the hive- followed by a flash of mild irritation that only Radek had asked about him. John felt Todd move to distract Rodney and the hive presence faded to the background again. John sighed. Being restrained in the infirmary wasn’t the most exciting status in the world.

Carson bustled into the room, and John looked up. It wasn’t surprising that O’Neill followed him. O’Neill tried to accompany as many people as possible when they visited him. Afraid they’d loosen the restraints or something, as if John hadn’t taught his people better. Besides, he’d already spread the seed right under O’Neill’s nose.

Woolsey, Ronon, Caldwell and Teyla followed O’Neill into John’s isolation room. John raised his eyebrows.

‘Hi, guys,’ he said, fully expecting the turn from the disgusted look on Ronon’s face to outright hatred. He wasn’t disappointed. No, there was no way Ronon would accept the hive, but Todd would try anyway.

Carson shifted nervously and glanced at O’Neill and Woolsey, O’Neill gave a slight nod. John frowned; something was going on here. He briefly felt Mehra’s desire to protect him from whatever it was and reassured her. He would be fine, Carson, Teyla and even Woolsey would stop Ronon from hurting him. Although he doubted O’Neill would.

‘Have you thought about the truce?’ John asked. A truce would be the best thing for all of them. Maybe some of them would be given the comfort of joining the hive. He knew Todd particularly wanted Teyla and Carson. John knew Teyla would eventually accept it, she was already more accepting of wraith then he’d ever been, but he still felt a pang of guilt at the thought of handing her and Carson over.

‘Oh, we’ve _thought_ about it,’ O’Neill told him, in a tone so sarcastic John suspected he’s developed it specifically for the occasion.

John sighed. ‘You really don’t want to be our enemy. I told you what Rodney will do.’

‘You also said to Radek that he kept his personality,’ Teyla pointed out, her usual serene expression marred slightly by sadness. John felt bad about that, he really did. ‘Rodney would never hurt us.’

John suspected she knew that wasn’t true anymore. ‘Rodney is part of the hive, and Todd won’t be happy if you don’t accept the truce.’

This was only partly true. Todd wouldn’t be happy, but he’d thoroughly expected it. Which was why John had already started infecting the cities system. It was a shame though, John wanted his hive to be allies with his old city.

‘Yeah,’ said O’Neill. ‘You’ve mentioned it.’

There was an uncomfortable pause.

Woolsey turned to Carson. ‘I believe we should just go ahead.’

‘Aye,’ said Carson, and stepped closer to John while pulling a small silver case out of his pocket.

John had seen those cases before, usually containing some kind of syringe. They were probably going to sedate him and move him back to the cell… except that wouldn’t call for the whole group of them.

‘Colonel,’ started Carson.

John stopped him right there. He knew this would be difficult for them, but they needed to understand and accept if there was any chance of a truce. ‘I’m not a Colonel anymore.’

No-one contradicted him, which was a little unnerving.

‘John,’ Carson said instead. ‘I believe I’ve found a cure.’

A what?

John looked blankly at Carson.

Carson shifted uneasily. ‘Well, we have all of Michael’s research and I can see from our tests on you what Todd’s done and… I think I can help you.’

Which was, of course, impossible. Todd had said the change was irreversible, so John wasn’t worried. He told them calmly; ‘I don’t need help. I’m fine. I told you, I’m happy like this, it’s not a problem.’

O’Neill rolled his eyes. ‘Just start the damn treatment, for crying out loud.’

Carson took out the syringe and John began to feel a little nervous. The change was irreversible, but it had hurt like nothing he’d ever experienced. Carson’s cure might fail, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be painful.

He pulled against the restraints. ‘You can’t get rid of the wraith DNA, it won’t work, but I told you the process hurt. I don’t want that again.’

Carson’s gave him a pitying look, John took that as a bad sign. ‘John, we’re not trying to remove the wraith DNA, but I think I can give you back your mind. Take away Todd’s influence.’

He thought….?

‘No,’ said John, almost involuntarily. They wanted to take away his hive. The web of minds awoke and he could feel Todd trying to calm them, particularly Rodney. John clung to the comfort of them. Carson would not take that away from him.

He started fighting the restraints, after all they kept wraith mildly sedated even in the restraints so maybe he, unsedated, could break through. Two soldiers (people he remembered arriving in Pegasus, remembered training) held one of his arms still despite his best efforts. John felt a prick on his arm, cursed and stopped fighting.

Carson was instructing the soldiers to add additional restraints. John flexed his arm where the needle had gone in. It probably wouldn’t do anything. Probably.

‘I’m going to start an IV,’ Carson told him, in full doctor mode now. John ignored him, but let the IV go into his hand. That would be for a sedative, now that he’d fought the restraints.

‘I don’t think you get it,’ John said, aware he sounded disappointed. He fixed Carson with a stare, he knew that humans would find his new wraith eyes unnerving. ‘I like being part of the hive. I don’t want to be ‘cured’ and I don’t think it’s possible.’

Woolsey made a slight tutting sound and turned to Carson. ‘Tell me if there’s any progress.’

Several hours later, John was feeling fuzzy headed. Great. The hive web was still there (thankfully), he just felt like he had a head cold. Maybe he was having a mild allergic reaction to it. John paused, and then realised that particular idea had originated from Rodney, who was alternating between doing the mental equivalent of hovering nervously and going about his duties in the hive. Mehra and Stackhouse were angry, but Todd had calmed them.

Carson strode in. ‘Time for the next dose I’m afraid lad. Please don’t fight it this time.’

John appreciated that they were trying to help him, he’d even expected something. But he couldn’t imagine life without his hive now, it would be… lonely.

But the treatment clearly wasn’t working so; ‘I won’t fight it.’

Carson visibly relaxed. ‘Good.’

John watched as Carson inserted the needle and injected him with its contents.

‘This one may be a wee bit more uncomfortable.’  
Wonderful. So full on flu symptoms then. John chose to ignore the niggling doubt that Carson’s cure might have some effect; Todd didn’t want him to consider it since it would upset the hive.

Carson was watching him closely, concern and hope etched into his face. ‘How does that feel?’

‘Fine,’ John started to say, but choked on the word. Todd had told him not to lie and his head was beginning to feel like he had a _severe_ head cold. John reached for Rodney and felt Mehra trying to shield him from the discomfort. Trying… and failing.

They felt distant. Too distant. John reached desperately for Rodney, but couldn’t quite get there. He could feel Todd re-establishing order, but the web of minds stayed just out of reach. John’s only consolation was that it wasn’t drifting any further away.

‘John?’ asked Carson, now sounded seriously worried.

‘I want you to stop the treatment,’ growled John, struggling to think through the mass of cotton wool that Carson’s cure had lodged in his head.

The only effect this had was to make Carson look _hopeful_ , god damn it. John knew Carson wanted Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard back, but he was gone and John didn’t want to lose his hive. Couldn’t take losing his hive. He tried pulling on the restraints again, but it felt like he was struggling through honey.

‘What the _hell_ have you give me?’

Carson might have replied, John wasn’t sure. But he could no longer focus on Carson. The room was spinning faster and faster around him and John was trying to ground himself by reaching for his hive, but although the web remained, he just couldn’t _get to it_. He could feel the others there but couldn’t tell if they were contacting him. There were fleeting emotions, particularly from Rodney, but nothing concrete. John felt a flash of concern from Todd and had to hold down panic.

John’s head felt heavy and it was increasingly difficult to hold onto any coherent thought, time had to be passing but John just wanted to reach his hive. Not just the web in his mind, but to be back there, on the ship, among them.

Another prick in his arm startled him.

‘No!’ John yelled. ‘I don’t-’

He didn’t finish the sentence because he felt the web shudder and then he could no longer feel Stackhouse. John was briefly angry and worried about Stackhouse, what had happened to remove him from the web? Then he realised he couldn’t feel any of the drones either and he knew the problem was not with Stackhouse. The problem was with him.

‘Stop!’ John screamed, unable to focus long enough to know if there was anyone in the room to listen to him.

The web started to fade, strands breaking off the same way they had re-established when he arrived in Atlantis, but in reverse. The influence of the city itself was beginning to hurt again and John tried to retreat from it, but he didn’t have enough contact with his hive to shield himself from it. Finally, all John could feel was Todd and Rodney, and then nothing.

John stopped fighting, stared blankly at the spinning room and _listened_. But the hive was gone.

‘Give it back,’ John whimpered, feeling more empty then he could ever remember. He was on his own, his mind like a vast space that stretched on forever. Alone. ‘Please.’

And then connection with another mind. Not hive, but John clung to it anyway it a desperate bid to stop the emptiness.

The cool presence slide over his mind, not part of him like his hive, but something. John lay still, eyes shut to avoid the spinning room and focused on the cool presence.

‘It’s okay, John,’ a soft voice assured him. ‘We will help you.’

Recognition came, and it was suddenly obvious to him. Just like Rodney’s whirlwind presence in the web of minds, Teyla’s cool presence matched her calm, confident personality.

‘Teyla,’ whispered John. Teyla was not hive, but she was familiar and had once been family. John felt a brief pang of regret for the loss of the brother-sister relationship he had had with Teyla. Then all he could focus on was her presence in the emptiness.

‘I am here,’ Teyla said, and John heard her voice more in his mind than with his ears. The sheer relief of a connection overwhelmed John and he let darkness fold around him.

John woke to Teyla’s presence still around his mind like a comforting blanket. John lay still and concentrated because there was something else as well; a light presence at the back of his mind welcoming him. For a second John was elated, it had to be his hive. Then it hit him. The presence was familiar from before his hive, it was Atlantis.

John recoiled. Atlantis shouldn’t be comforting; he was the enemy now, a danger to everyone within the city. Everyone who had once been friend or family.

John felt Teyla stir. ‘John?’

‘Teyla,’ John said quietly. He should ignore her really, she was one of the people doing this to him. But he couldn’t, not when she was also helping him. And she was- no _had been_ -family.

‘I am sorry,’ Teyla told him. ‘We are trying to help you. I know it does not feel that way.’  
‘I know,’ John whispered. He did know. He just wished they’d stop. ‘Its gone, Teyla.’

John felt tears fall down his cheeks but didn’t try to stop. Maybe now she’d see how much he needed his hive.

‘Its okay, John. We will help you. You will be yourself again, I promise.’

John opened his eyes and stared at her. “I _am_ myself.’

Or he had been anyway, before they took away his contact with his hive. He was himself, that just wasn’t who they expected him to be. John felt empty.

Teyla shook her head. ‘You are not yourself. Surely you remember resisting, not wanting this to happen to you.’

John nodded slowly, carefully to avoid causing the room to spin again. ‘Of course I do. But I’m not that person anymore, I’m Todd’s.’

A flash of anger rippled across her mind, but Teyla only sighed. ‘I hope we will able to bring you back to who you were before Todd took you, so you can help us. We want to help those still with Todd, and none of us want to become Todd’s.’

Panic flooded John. Todd wanted Teyla, he wanted to torture Teyla until she was no longer herself and served him. John looked desperately at Teyla. ‘He wants you, you and Carson in particular, you can’t go after him.’

John froze, staring into Teyla’s shocked expression. He shouldn’t have said that, why had he told her that?

Carson entered the room and stopped, sensing the tense atmosphere. John saw he was holding a syringe and swallowed, his eyes fixed on it. It was this drug that had cut him off from his hive, that was confusing him and had made him tell Teyla something Todd did not want her to know.

‘I believe this is your next dose,’ said Teyla, the discomfort in her voice matching that in her mind.

As Carson advanced into the room, looking questioningly at Teyla, John cringed from him.

‘Back off,’ said John, injecting fury into his tone. ‘Don’t give me anymore of that damn thing.’

Carson winced, then launched into an explanation that John got the impression Carson had been just itching to tell him. ‘It’s not just one drug, lad. It’s a series of drugs designed to remove the wraith influence from your central nervous system.’ Carson brightened slightly. ‘I’m hoping the mild build-up of scar tissue around your spine will prevent it from being able to be re-established.’

John moaned, and felt a flicker of irritation in Teyla’s mind.

‘I do not believe that is comforting to him at the moment.’

‘Oh.’ Carson looked heavily disappointed and slightly guilty. ‘Sorry.’

John flinched as he was given the cure and refused to look at Carson. He could feel Teyla itching to tell Carson what he’d said, but holding herself back until she was out of his presence.

O’Neill walked in, casting a glance at John. ‘Feel like telling us where that hive ship is yet?’

John ignored him. He couldn’t deal with O’Neill’s flippant sarcasm anymore, he needed his hive.

‘Okay, then.’ O’Neill turned to Carson and Teyla. ‘Meeting time.’

John felt Teyla’s mind slip from his as she got up to leave and he tried to reach for her.

‘I will be back,’ Teyla assured him.

O’Neill watched the exchange. ‘You’re still helping him?’

John didn’t miss the disapproval in his voice but he didn’t care, if Teyla was leaving then he’d be alone again and he didn’t know how to deal with that.

Teyla sent O’Neill a determined glance. ‘Yes, I am.’

She sent a reassuring glance in John’s direction and followed the others out of the room. The door closed with an echoing bang.

John closed his eyes, but it only made his awareness of the emptiness worse. He tried to shift position, but the restraints held him in place. He cursed when all he could feel was Atlantis’s presence in his mind. _It should not be comforting_.

‘Go away!’ John screamed at the city, but the hum didn’t even falter. ‘Damn it!’

John wanted Rodney and wondered how he was dealing with his sudden absence; probably panicking. John could relate to that. He couldn’t live without his hive, not anymore. He hoped they were on their way, the sooner Todd could fix the damage they’d done the better.

Except.

If Todd made it to the city to help him, then he would have access to the people in Atlantis. The thought disturbed John more than ever and he tried to dismiss it but without Todd’s mind there to stop him he couldn’t banish the thought. Todd would destroy the people of Atlantis, he would take those he wanted and kill the rest. He would kill John’s people.

John shook his head to clear the thought. They weren’t his people anymore. He had the hive. Rodney was part of the hive, he had to get back to Rodney.

The feeling of having a head cold was returning and John’s head felt like lead. The room started spinning again, slowly at first and then faster. John closed his eyes but the sensation remained and in the darkness all he could feel was the emptiness with Atlantis humming away at the back of his mind and it was _too much_. John tried to fall into the darkness, to let unconsciousness take him but the spinning continued, he was in free fall; no control over his flight. And then finally, he lapsed into unconsciousness again.

John woke to silence. He lay there, barely thinking. No minds invading his, just the hum of Atlantis. He relaxed, let out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. And then froze.

No minds. Invading? _Invading?_

He’d been part of a hive. _Rodney_ was still part of a hive. He had to get Rodney out of there. He’d left Rodney at the mercy of Todd. _He’d left Rodney behind_.

Not only had he left Rodney behind but he’d convinced Rodney to give in to Todd in the first place, and then Todd had taken his mind too. John shuddered. All those minds in his, reading his thoughts, taking away his privacy. It was his worst nightmare, but somehow Todd had made him enjoy it, had made him lonely without it. So maybe John did get lonely sometimes, it didn’t mean he wanted to be dependent on Todd.

John flinched away from the concept. That was what Todd had done, tortured him and Rodney and left them with only a flicker of independence.

Teyla entered the room, causing John to jump at the sudden intrusion. Teyla moved calmly over and seated herself next to his bed.

Then John felt her trying to enter his mind.

Panic and fury engulfed him. He would _not_ allow anyone else into his mind.

John fought against the restraints, trying to get away from her. _‘Get out of my head!’_

Teyla stopped instantly, leaving John to try and regulate his panicked breathing.

When he recovered enough to look at her, Teyla was regarding him cautiously. ‘You do not wish me to do that anymore?’

‘No,’ John ground out through gritted teeth. How had he ever wanted anyone invading his mind?

Teyla was still watching him carefully, but John didn’t know what to say to her. Somehow he didn’t think ‘hi, it’s me’ would work any better than it would have during the Thalen incident. What could he say; ‘I’m not Todd’s creature anymore’? Even the thought of acknowledging that he had been was painful.

‘Paper,’ said John, instead.

‘What?’ asked Teyla, clearly confused.

‘Pen and paper,’ John clarified. ‘Get me a pen and paper.’

Unquestioning, Teyla crossed the room and rummaged through a draw before returning. She placed a pen in his hand and paper under it. Then she waited.

Carefully, John sketched out six gate symbols. ‘Closest gate to the hive when I left it.’

Teyla’s eyes widened and she took it very carefully. ‘You are sure?’

‘Yeah,’ said John, not looking at her. ‘He’s probably moved by now though.’

Todd would’ve moved as soon as he felt John’s presence leave the web of minds, but it was all John could do to indicate the hive’s position.

‘I will be back,’ Teyla vowed, and hurried out of the room.

John didn’t doubt she’d be back. He and O’Neill and Carson and probably others. Maybe Ronon would come. His outright hostility was about all John felt deserving of.

It didn’t take long. O’Neill barged in, followed by Teyla, Woolsey, Carson, Ronon, Lorne and Radek.

‘You expect us to believe this?’ demanded O’Neill.

That was exactly the problem.

‘No,’ John admitted. ‘But I expect you to consider it. Todd will have moved by now anyway, he’ll be coming here.’

In John’s mind the most that address would be able to do was give them a rough idea of the route Todd might take to Atlantis. O’Neill was ranting about the lack of worth in it, but there was something else, something far more important, John couldn’t quite place it. Then he looked at Radek and the memory slotted back into place.

‘Shut up and listen,’ John told O’Neill.

There was a brief silence. Ronon sneered. No doubt questioning the value of anything John had to say. Rightly so, after everything he’d done.

‘There’s an infection in Atlantis’s systems, I spread it to your hands and no doubt its entered the system by now,’ John was staring past them all, unable to make eye contact, or explain exactly where the virus had come from. They’d ask him eventually and wouldn’t _that_ be a fun conversation. ‘I think it will transform the whole system, make it closer to wraith technology and put it under Rodney’s control. It’s organic, more like a medical virus than a computer one. You’ve got to destroy it before it takes control.’

Ronon snarled and his gun was pointed at John’s head again before anyone else could move. ‘I told you we should’ve killed him.’

John forced himself to look Ronon straight in the eye. ‘Kill me if it makes you feel better, but destroy that virus before Todd gets here or he’ll take the city, and all of you, under his control.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's the next chapter. I've actually got a fair idea where I'm going to take this now, and I've got a bit more written, so we'll see but I think I might actually finish this.
> 
> Sorry to all the people mourning John's hive connection :( . Maybe someone else will come up with an ending where he stays with the hive.

The atmosphere in the room following John’s announcement had been akin to a kicked anthill. People had been scurrying around to whisper privately to others, most of which John could hear anyway as the iratus DNA had improved his senses, while everyone else had been shouting various forms of insults or demands for explanations at John.

Woolsey had attempted to take charge, but O’Neill had succeeded. His instructions had been simple.

Point one, check everyone John had had contact with for any contamination, despite John trying to tell him that the seed would have died by now if not already transferred to the system.

Point two, get John to the isolation room immediately.

Point three, people were only allowed contact with John in full hazmat gear and were to be decontaminated afterwards.

Which was how John found himself in the isolation room surrounded by a bunch of pissed off people in bright orange hazmat suits.

‘So,’ said O’Neill, voice muffled by the hazmat gear. ‘How did you bring this… seed into the city?’

John winced. Straight to the best part of the conversation then.

‘Uh…’ How exactly was he supposed to go about explaining this?

‘Well?’ asked O’Neill, while Woolsey and Caldwell glared suspiciously at him and Lorne lurked in the corner with Ronon. Carson just looked plain awkward.

‘I… produced it,’ John admitted, focusing his gaze somewhere past them all.

‘Excuse me?’ said Woolsey at the same time Caldwell questioned; ‘You did what?’

John wished he could shrink into the bed, or undo the last week. Or maybe go back in time and kill Todd even when Woolsey had ordered against it.

‘It’s organic,’ John explained, shifting so that he was staring up at the ceiling, anything but looking at their faces. He felt a flush creeping up his neck. ‘It gets produced by me and then I… released it through my hand.’

He risked a brief glance at them and regretted it instantly. O’Neill irritated expression had frozen in place, while Woolsey was downright horrified. Lorne had turned away. Caldwell and Carson both had their faces screwed up in various degrees of disgust; John sympathised.

O’Neill pointed at Carson. ‘You need to stop him from being able to do that.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Carson, putting on his professional doctor mask. ‘I’ll have to take another look at his DNA, but a wee tweak to the last bit of treatment might just do it.’

‘The last bit of treatment?’ John blurted out. He’d thought that fun little episode was over.

‘You’ve got two injections left,’ Carson told him, somewhat apologetically.

‘Is that a problem?’ asked O’Neill, suggesting that if it was John could just go ahead and put up with it because it was happening anyway.

‘No,’ said John, mostly honestly, and looked back up at the ceiling. He was fine with more treatment, unless it started messing with his head again. That spinning and head cold feeling may have successfully removed him from the hive but it had hardly been the best experience of his life.

‘What, exactly, will this _seed_ do to the system?’ asked O’Neill.

‘Like I said,’ John replied, trying to distance himself from this, because acknowledging the reality of the last few days was not something he thought he was capable of doing if he was going to remain sane. ‘It will take over the system, slowly though, it would take days before it would attract attention. By then it would have a hold over a few of the key systems. Shields. Weapons. Power in certain sections, like the control chair. From there it will adapt the system, so that it’s as much wraith technology as Ancient, that way the hiv- _Todd_ can access it mentally even before he’s in the city. He plans to enact a quarantine that’s under his control, lock everyone away into separate areas. Then he can send people in and open up each section individually and take more of our people with minimal resistance. He’ll kill if he thinks it would be too difficult to capture, just evacuate the oxygen from specific place. Once his done that, he’ll take the city, use it as his new base.’

‘Good lord,’ said Carson.

‘But that’s not possible,’ argued Woolsey, looking very uncertain. ‘He can’t just transform Ancient technology into wraith technology. Can he?’

‘He was sure it would work.’ John remembered that there had been no doubt in Todd’s mind. ‘It’s not a complete transformation, it turns it in to a blend of wraith and Ancient technology.’

Much like John was a blend of human and iratus DNA. Now wasn’t _that_ a comforting comparison.

‘How do we stop it?’ asked Caldwell.

They weren’t going to like it, but John wasn’t sure. Todd hadn’t considered that important information for John to know, so John hadn’t really considered it. No doubt there’d been _something_ in Todd’s mind hinting at it, but trying to remember everything in the minds of the other hive members now that he was no longer connected was like trying to hold on to a handful of sand. Pieces just kept slipping away.

‘To slow it Radek can try diverting power. Parts of the infection will try and follow the main power conduits since they all eventually lead to the vital systems,’ said John, imagining the seed he had spread coiling its way through Atlantis’s systems and poisoning his city so that it would hand all of his people over to Todd. He took a deep breath and banished the thought. ‘It might take an organic method to actually kill it though. Maybe some form of wraith virus.’

‘Some form of wraith virus,’ mimicked O’Neill. ‘That’s not exactly helpful.’

‘I know that,’ John snapped, irritated. ‘What the hell do you want? A full explanation of a cure for the city right down to the goddamn molecular level? I’m not a doctor, and I’m not a scientist and if Todd had thought over a countermeasure then _I don’t remember_.’

‘Then you’re not really a lot of help to us, are you?’ returned O’Neill.

‘No,’ John fired back. ‘I’m not.’

He doubted he was a lot of help to anyone, anymore. Couldn’t help undo what he’d done to the city, couldn’t help Rodney, trapped mentally as much as physically with Todd. He wasn’t any good to either side, he wasn’t part of the hive anymore, couldn’t even think of it without feeling physically sick. He wasn’t good to Atlantis anymore.

He couldn’t even pick up his old duties because they didn’t trust him; with good reason. John wasn’t sure he was capable of his old duties anyway and was sure he no longer deserved them, if he ever had. No, all he was good for now was being locked up somewhere as an enemy and maybe an object for scientific study.

O’Neill was ushering everyone out of the room. John figured they’d be discussing counter moves where he couldn’t hear.

Once they’d all left, John found himself alone with his thoughts. He almost preferred the disgusted and accusing conversation.

Thinking about the hive was the last thing he wanted to do. Maybe he should try and call Carson back, ask for a sedative. Except he could hardly say why he wanted it and he didn’t have anything to call Carson or even a nurse with. So a moot point then.

John closed his eyes and thought of flying. The awesome experience of flying a Puddle Jumper, it obeying his mental commands, like the drones in a hive. John jerked upright and encountered the restraints, forcing him to lie back down again. Great. Now he was going to be creeped out next time he flew a Jumper.

Maybe he should focus on helicopters. The adrenaline rush of the g-force in the tight turn, or as you went into a controlled dive, or an uncontrolled dive because you’d just been shot down during an unauthorised rescue mission.

‘Damn it!’ yelled John. Thinking of flying usually worked and the few times it hadn’t he’d been able to get up and go running. That wasn’t really an option.

He realised he was shaking and tried to stop, unsuccessfully.

‘Goddamn it,’ John repeated, in a hoarse whisper.

Taking a deep breath he focused on the hum of Atlantis in his mind, which was no more productive then thinking of the Jumper. John wondered if he’d be able to feel it when Atlantis’s systems began to change.

When? If.

 _If_ Atlantis’s systems began to change.

But Todd had been so certain. Although he had been planning on the terms that it would go undiscovered until the hive arrived, that had been a key part, for the virus to spread unnoticed for a prolonged period of time. Well John had screwed that part up at least.

Then the hive would arrive and begin to take control, before rescuing John.

The plan would proceed from there, implementing the quarantine and meeting up with the cruiser if it had been too slow to make it to the rendezvous.

The cruiser. _He’d forgotten to tell them about the cruiser._

Shit.

‘Hey!’ John yelled at the top of his lung. ‘Hey! Someone get O’Neill in here!’

No response. Obviously. Last time he’d called for O’Neill from the cell he’d succeeding in spreading the seed to people. And getting shot.

‘Hey!’ John shouted. ‘Get someone in here!’

Still no response. There would be guards outside the room but they must have orders to ignore him. But surely that would just be reckless when John could remember important information. Like now.

‘I don’t care who the hell it is, but send someone in! It’s important!’

This was beyond frustrating.

‘I swear if you don’t get someone in here right now-’

The door opened. O’Neill stood there.

‘You’ll what? Pull on the restraints some more? Keep shouting? Try and compose limericks?’ O’Neill approached in his bulky hazmat suits. ‘You haven’t got a lot of options for threats there, Colonel.’

John was relived. ‘I don’t know. The limerick option sounds like a good threat, you haven’t heard my poetry.’

Rodney would have made a joke about vogons, but O’Neill remained poker faced. John was strangely disappointed.

‘I assume you were yelling for a reason.’

‘Yeah.’ John took a deep breath. ‘You need to evacuate the alpha site, _immediately._ ’

‘Oh, I do, do I?’ O’Neill was not impressed.

John steeled himself and looked O’Neill in the eye. ‘Yes, you do. Todd was going to send a cruiser there, it’s probably already on its way. The cruiser is going to cull our alpha site, and return the people to Todd’s hive. He’ll start converting them straight away, making them into soldiers so rounding up the people on Atlantis is easier.’

There was a hyperspace pause between where Todd had been and Atlantis where he would rendezvous with the cruiser, but there was a possibility that Todd and Rodney working on the hives systems efficiency would mean that the pause wasn’t necessary. In which case they’d meet up with the cruiser in orbit around New Lantea.

It would take time to alter the people from the alpha site into hive members, but Todd wasn’t in a hurry. With the infection in the system Atlantis would be unable to fire drones and the Daedalus would have been scheduled to have left by then, it had been delayed and then stayed because of John’s information. Todd had taken into account that possibility, he was prepared to wait a certain distance away, and was sure the Daedalus wouldn’t risk leaving Atlantis defenseless to come and attack him.

Not that Todd needed the people from the alpha site to take Atlantis. Not if he’d got them successfully quarantined off from each other.

O’Neill turned and exited the room.

‘Don’t pick a new alpha site from the approved list!’ John called after him. ‘Todd knows them all!’

O’Neill paused, so John new he’d heard, but he kept walking and the doors shut behind him.

John was left alone. Again.

O’Neill would evacuate the alpha site. Even if he didn’t believe John, he had to simply as a precaution. He’d also have no choice but to choose a new alpha site, because they’d be evacuating all none essential personnel from Atlantis in preparation for Todd’s arrival. Probably complete evacuation was on the table given Todd’s intentions.

John hoped they didn’t ask for his opinion, he was thankful that it was highly unlikely they would. Any decision he made was in danger of being predicted by Todd, since Todd had had full access to his mind and his tactics.

The door opened again and John turned his head in surprise. Surely O’Neill would be contacting the alpha site?

It took John a second to recognise that it was Carson in the hazmat suit, holding his little syringe case.

‘That was quick,’ said John, surprised and more than a little bit apprehensive. ‘I thought you were modifying it?’

Carson took out the syringe, miraculously not fumbling with the thick gloves on. ‘It’s turned out to be a bit too complex to change your DNA to remove that particular function, but we have identified the organ in question. It’s located where we would expect to find the enzyme sack in a wraith.’ Carson indicted the area on his arm just below his elbow.

Uh oh. John thought he knew where this was going.

‘Since we can’t leave it there, I’m going to have to operate.’

‘Wonderful,’ John muttered under his breath. ‘Because I haven’t had enough creepy medical procedures recently.’

Carson looked pitying and slightly embarrassed. ‘It’s just a wee operation.’

‘Yeah,’ John agreed, unenthusiastically. ‘Just a ‘wee’ bit of organ removal.’

‘It’s not a vital organ,’ Carson protested, but John knew him well enough to hear the ‘I hope’ tagged on the end.

John let his head flop back onto the pillow. ‘Great.’

At least if they were trying out the experimental stuff on him, they’d have a better idea of what would work for Rodney.

‘I’ll give you this next treatment,’ Carson said, approaching with the syringe held up. ‘And then I’ll be back in an hour or so for the procedure.’

‘What?’ asked John. ‘Here?’

Clearly someone wasn’t happy with moving him to an operating room.

‘You’ll only need a local anaesthetic,’ Carson told him while he injected the treatment. ‘It won’t take long.’

Carson sent him one last apologetic look, then retreated from the isolation room. John wondered how you were supposed to perform surgery in a hazmat suit.

Lying there, John had nothing else to do but brace for the oncoming side-effects from the cure. Except they never arrived. John was still braced when Carson entered with what looked like an entire operating room in tow. Apparently he was over the worst of the treatment, which would explain why Carson was willing to operate so soon after a dose.

‘Just a minor procedure,’ John said doubtfully.

‘Just a minor procedure,’ Carson confirmed, helping one of his nurses wheel in the heart monitor and clearly not getting the irony.

None of them were wearing hazmat gear, so John could be thankful of that at least.

‘Ah,’ said Carson, looking at John, ‘we’re going to have to remove your shirt.’

His shirt. John could see the problem there, he’d changed into scrubs when he’d been moved to isolation, but John couldn’t remove the shirt with his arms tied down. He seriously doubted they were going to untie him to solve the problem, maybe Carson had decided to use a general anaesthetic after all. Carson produced a pair of scissors. Or maybe not.

Carson handed the scissors to a nurse while he attached his face mask.

The nurse didn’t meet John’s eyes, she just hooked the scissors under the front of the shirt and very efficiently cut right down to the bottom. She moved on to the sleeves, cutting through them too.

‘I’m going to pull the shirt out now,’ she told him, in a flat voice.

Or what was left of the shirt anyway. Clearly she hadn’t been one of the nurses who’d seen him after the retrovirus, she was definitely unnerved by him.

Getting the back chunk of the shirt pulled past John’s mutated spine felt more than a little strange, so he shifted uncomfortably. The nurse leapt back, brandishing the scissors. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing turned and stared at him. Someone’s hand flew up to their radio, no doubt ready to call in marines.

John kept very still. ‘Sorry.’

Carson quickly took control of the situation. He tapped the nurse light on the shoulder, ‘Perhaps, you should watch the heart monitor, love.’

Another nurse swooped in and started connecting John up to his heart monitor while Carson administered the local anaesthetic. John felt like just another piece of equipment. Or a test subject.

And that was another thought he was officially banned from thinking. Particularly when attached to a heart monitor.

‘I’m making the initial incision now,’ Carson said. ‘This may feel a bit odd.’

John knew that. He’d had operations under local anaesthetics before. It was still strange, feeling the tug of the scalpel as it cut into his arm, but without the pain. John was very careful to look the other way. He was going to have enough nightmares from this without having the image of creepy iratus organ surgery.

John lay there and listened to the beep of his heart monitor while Carson continued with the procedure, giving occasional instructions to the nurses.

Carson tutted slightly and the tugging increased.

‘What?’ asked John, determined not to look for himself. He probably wouldn’t see the problem anyway and he was not going to see the iratus organ. It would have been bad enough seeing some mutant organ anyway, worse knowing it was in his arm.

One of the nurses replied. ‘Parts of the tissue are beginning to heal before the organ’s fully removed. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem.’

Well it sounded like a problem to John. At least there was a nurse who was willing to talk to him though; he preferred not to distract Carson when he was performing experimental surgery.

‘There we go,’ said Carson and John detected a note of triumph. ‘Got the bugger. Now I’ve just got to stitch you up.’

John felt the tug of the needle, in and out of his skin as Carson stitched up his arm. Carson then removed the restraint from his arm.

John looked around in surprise. ‘O’Neill won’t like that.’

‘What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,’ said Carson, smoothly. ‘The local stops you from moving your arm so he shouldn’t really have anything to complain about… and it will make bandaging it much easier.’

John couldn’t fault that logic. Unless O’Neill was watching one of the live feeds from the isolation room, in which case Carson was going to get his ass handed to him. Of course, when Carson did choose to do something for a medical reason, he could be pretty darn fierce defending his actions.

Carson finished up the bandaging and patted John on the arm. ‘There. Due to the rate of healing I doubt you’ll even have a scar.’

The heart monitor was removed.

‘Because of the nature of the surgery, I would have expected to already be aware any complications,’ Carson explained, John didn’t understand that but he nodded anyway. Carson knew what he was doing. ‘But we’ll keep a close eye on you.’

Like they weren’t doing that already. John watched as the medical team gathered up the equipment and bustled back out of the room. Vaguely John wondered if he’d be moved from the isolation room now. Probably not, it was pretty secure.

It looked like his life for the foreseeable future was going to be brief bursts of activity followed by being left restrained. John hoped they’d get him another shirt; the isolation room was more than a little bit cold. And John was hungry.

He could ask for food next time someone came in, but John wasn’t sure how well a request for food would go down coming from a guy who resembled a wraith.

No, he’d just have to wait. They’d give him something eventually.

John closed his eyes, trying not to think, and waited for the next burst of visitors.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has scenes added that I wrote out of order, if you notice any mistakes, please tell me :)

They’d allowed him to put on another shirt, which had meant taking off the restraints, temporarily of course. As a consequence, John had ended up on the receiving end of four P90s as he pulled the shirt over his head, being very careful not to make any move that could be seen as threatening. Then he’d been restrained again, by two of the marines while the other two continued to cover him. John knew all of them, and he felt sorry for them; they’d all been more than a little bit awkward.

Immediately after, it had been time for his next treatment. It had been Dr Biro, not Carson, who’d given it to him. Somehow, she’d managed to talk at him the whole time. John had noticed that some people on Atlantis had a remarkable ability to just take everything in their stride. Biro was evidently one of them, Radek was another.

Somewhere in Biro’s stream of words she’d managed to explain to him that Carson was working with the science team to produce a cure for the computer infection. Curiously, she mentioned Carson was hoping to base it on the treatment he’d given John. Also, they hadn’t got anywhere with it yet. John was pretty sure she shouldn’t have mentioned that part. _And_ she’d told him they’d be bringing him some food soon. That still left him the conundrum of how he was going to eat it while restrained.

Once Biro left, he found himself relieved at the silence. Biro was nice enough, but it could get exhausting trying to keep up a conversation with her. It was different with Rodney, who could talk nearly as fast. Rodney would talk on and on in detail about a subject, and while a lot of it went of John’s head, some of it was pretty interesting. And Rodney’s ranting was entertaining to watch.

John wondered how Rodney was managing on the hive. He’d have been worried, probably frantic, and John’s disappearance from the mind web, he would be waiting, listening for John to reconnect. John wasn’t going to reconnect. Or he seriously hoped not, although he was apprehensive about the hive drawing closer. What if Carson’s cure only disconnected him from it because of the distance?

John swallowed nervously.

But if he reconnected he’d at least know how Rodney was holding up. John shook the thought away. He might find out how Rodney was, but he’d also end up under Todd’s influence again and John intended to do everything, _anything_ , possible to prevent that.

Lorne walked in, minus a hazmat suit, just like Biro had been. Lorne was more than a bit tense, and was avoiding John’s gaze. John hoped that was just residual awkwardness from the whole situations and not another can of worms to be dealt with.

‘Evacuated the alpha site, just as the cruiser was coming in,’ Lorne told him.

John breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Good. O’Neill didn’t hesitate then?’

‘We’re choosing a new alpha site now.’ Lorne was uncomfortable. ‘All no essential personnel will be evacuated.’

John appreciated the sit rep, but this was all obvious information, things they would _have_ to do, so John waited for the other shoe to drop.

‘O’Neill and Woolsey have come to an agreement and they want to evacuate you to the new alpha site.’

John felt like someone had sent an electric shock through him. Leave the city when it was under attack? But it actually made a lot of sense. O’Neill didn’t want an unpredictable element like John in the city when they were trying to fight Todd.

‘Sir?’ asked Lorne, sounding guilty.

John nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘I’m sorry sir-’ Lorne started.

‘It’s okay, Major, I understand.’

Lorne saluted him, which felt wrong. Last time John had saluted someone like that it had been Everett… after he’d been fed on by a wraith.

Lorne didn’t wait for John to respond- which was just as well considering John could hardly salute back- he just left the isolation room quickly.

John huffed out a breath. He was going to be shipped off to the alpha site while his people fought to undo his mistake. That wasn’t acceptable. He’d have to change O’Neill’s mind, he couldn’t leave. But how would he change O’Neill’s mind? Nothing he said would be believed, his own actions had brought this on, even if he’d been under Todd’s influence at the time. How could he argue, when he had no grounds for it?

Like he’d said to Lorne; he understood. They had to do this, even if they needed all the fighters they could get, and John had no right to tell them otherwise. He’d brought the threat to them.

John didn’t have to wait long for the promised food to arrive. Teyla walked in, carrying a tray with a bowl of soup and a spoon.

‘I am sorry,’ said Teyla. ‘O’Neill would not give me permission to remove your restraints.’

Oh lovely, he was to be spoon fed. Literally.

‘That’s alright, Teyla,’ John replied, he was just about hungry enough for it to be worth it.

‘I can raise the bed so that you are sitting up,’ Teyla offered, raising it without waiting for a reply.

It was much better, John hadn’t realised how pissed off he’d been getting lying flat on his back.

‘How is your arm?’ inquired Teyla, perching herself on the edge of the bed while gracefully balancing the tray.

‘Healed, I think,’ John admitted, reluctantly. Sure, the healing was a good thing, but John already had enough things to remind him of what had been done to him.

‘That is good.’ Teyla offered him a small smile and then raised a spoon full of soup.

John ate it, but he had a nasty feeling he’d read in a mission report that Teyla had fed Michael like this. He was not going to compare himself to Michael. He was _not_ going to compare himself to Michael.

He finished the soup and Teyla placed the tray on the bed next to her.

‘I have told them about the mind connection, I believed it to be important.’

John frowned. Had he not told anyone about the mind connection? He supposed he hadn’t, in fact now she mentioned it, he didn’t even remember telling Teyla.

‘You passed the information on to me while I was helping you through Carson’s cure,’ Teyla explained, noticing his confusion. ‘I was not sure whether you did so intentionally.’

‘No,’ said John. ‘It wasn’t intentional, but I’m glad you passed it on.’

And he was. He should have said something himself; it was vital information if any member of the hive got into the city. O’Neill needed to know that whatever one of them knew, all of them would, without the need to convey it by radio. They were going to more suspicious of him now, that he hadn’t told them. It had been such an entrenched part of the hive system that somewhere along the way John had assumed everyone knew. Well they did now.

‘We will get through this John.’

John looked up at Teyla, to find her looking reassuringly at him.

‘We will get through this and we will get Rodney back too.’

‘Yeah.’ John didn’t meet her eyes. Unless they managed to clear the infection before Todd arrived, then he couldn’t be sure of that. If they did clear the infection before Todd arrived, then it was unlikely Todd would go ahead with the invasion and there was no way they’d get Rodney back.

Teyla gave him one last sad smile and left. O’Neill had probably told her not to stay long. Or to tell him anything, although Biro had probably had the same instructions.

She’d left his bed upright, though, which was an improvement. John wondered what he was supposed to hope for. If Rodney never left Todd’s hive, it was unlikely they’d ever get him back. If the city’s infection got bad enough that Todd was willing to send Rodney down, then Rodney’s input could mean they lose Atlantis and Rodney would still stay as one of Todd’s pets. And try and find a way to bring John back into the hive.

He could hardly ask Carson and Radek to delay their cure for Atlantis so that Todd would send Rodney down.

He barely had time to process these thoughts before the doors opened again and a group of marines came in, accompanied by Caldwell. One of the marines was holding the thick wraith cuffs, John recognised him as Captain Tyler.

‘Time to go,’ said Caldwell.

They must have chosen an alpha site. John didn’t reply. There wasn’t anything to say.

Two of the marines removed the restraints, while the others covered him with their P90s. Again, John was careful not to be threatening.

Tyler moved in with the restraints, avoiding John’s eyes. John didn’t resist; this was hard enough for them without him making it worse.

Caldwell walked out, followed by two of the marines. Tyler motioned for John to go next, but John was already moving, he knew the drill. The rest of the marines surrounded him.

John staggered a little at first, he’d been immobile for quite a while, and could sense the tension in the marines. He hoped none of them were too trigger happy.

There were very few people in the hallways, John guessed most of the non-essential personnel had already been evacuated, he was probably one of the last to leave. It didn’t make sense to take a potential threat to somewhere you were still setting up.

Those people who were still in the corridor went silent as John’s little party passed them. John could feel their stares following him.

They went straight past the transporter, causing John to nearly bump into one of the marines. He’d been heading that way on impulse, but of course they didn’t want to be in a confined space with him. It was unlikely the whole party would fit. Six marines seemed like overkill to John, he was already restrained.

They never made it to the control room. Warning alarms started going off when they were half way there and the party stopped instantly. Caldwell moved a little way off and started speaking urgently into his radio. John tried to listen and managed to catch a few words despite the distance; ‘hive’ and ‘too late’ and ‘return’.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on. The hive had arrived.

Which was seriously bad news, because to John’s knowledge the infection was still spreading freely. On the upside, he hadn’t reconnected to the mind web.

Caldwell turned to face the group again. ‘Take him back to the isolation room! Spencer, Rivers, with me.’

Caldwell headed back to the transporter with Spencer and Rivers in tow.

The marines escorted John back to the isolation room, watching him very closely. John knew they’d be expecting him to make a move to escape, based on the assumption that he was still under Todd’s control of course. O’Neill, Woolsey and Caldwell would have to make that assumption, they had no choice, but it didn’t mean John had to like it.

The wrist cuffs were removed and one of the marines motioned for John to lie back down on the bed. John hesitated, only briefly, because his city was going to be attacked and he should be defending it, but it was enough to unsettle the marines. John lay down before anyone could overreact and allowed himself to acknowledge his relief.

At the very least, he would no longer be abandoning his city to an attack he had helped to bring on.

Hours later, the relief of staying on Atlantis had dissolved. To make matters worse, the frustration of lying down doing nothing was amplified by the knowledge that Todd’s hiveship was nearby, just waiting to attack.

And Rodney was on it.

John shifted irritably. He should be doing _something_. Even if that something wasn’t immediately rushing to the hiveship to pull Rodney and the rest of his people out of there. In fact, John was almost glad he couldn’t do that; the very thought of setting foot on the ship again sent shivers up his creepy mutated spine.

The creepy mutated spine in question was driving him nuts. Being restrained came with the benefit of not having access to a mirror of any sort, so John couldn’t accidentally get a glimpse of his reflection. Therefore, having to see wraith eyes staring back at him was put off a bit longer. The spine was a different matter. John was stuck flat on his back, which meant he could feel it digging into the mattress. All. The. Time.

John had been arching his back to avoid that, but it must have looked a lot like fighting the restraints because it had attracted Woolsey into the room. Woolsey had offered up his version of a cease and desist notice and had then hurried out again.

This meant John’s options were either put up with it or start moving again and risk cease and desist notice part two. Which could be anything from a pissed off Woolsey, to heavily armed marines or Carson with a sedative.

Not that Carson with a sedative would be too bad. It would have the bonus of not having to deal with the uncomfortable spine. But John really didn’t want to be unconscious with a probable invasion coming. He could all too easily wake up after having been dragged back onto the hiveship.

John decided to lie still and put up with it.

That option lasted all of a minute. John was not used to being out of the loop when it came to threats to his city and people and he didn’t like it. He shifted irritably and cursed at his back. Was the hive in orbit around the planet or had Todd settled near a moon? Had they sent the Daedalus out to fight or maybe a puddle jumper to scout out the hive’s modifications? Todd could have started the invasion for all John knew. Maybe he hadn’t been able to undo his betrayal, maybe the city was in quarantine and the hive members already in the city. It wasn’t as if John could tell, he was more or less quarantined already.

At least O’Neill was in charge. He’d had more experience with invasions like this than anyone, and John believed he’d do the right thing. O’Neill would try to help those on the hive, but he wouldn’t lose the city to do it. John wished he knew he’d do the same, but it was _Rodney_ up there.

‘Damn it,’ John hissed, just as Lorne and Radek entered.

‘Yes,’ said Radek, giving his knowing smile. ‘We thought you would appreciate an update.’

Lorne looked uncomfortable. ‘O’Neill’s letting us update you, sir, but only with limited information.’

John nodded. It was more then he’d expected. ‘The city’s not in quarantine?’

‘No,’ said Lorne.

‘The infection has not gone,’ clarified Radek. ‘It is still a problem, but we were able to stop it from spreading to all the target systems you mentioned.’

John suspected that meant it was still a major problem and still spreading, but those were clearly details he wasn’t allowed to have confirmed.

‘Todd was in orbit around the moon,’ said Lorne. ‘But he’s moved to orbit above us.’

‘Do we have the shield?’ asked John, sharply. If Todd was moving closer there was a good chance he was about to invade. The cloak would be beyond useless, since all the people had been taken since Atlantis moved to that planet.

Radek and Lorne looked at each other awkwardly.

‘You can’t answer that,’ John guessed. Infuriatingly, that didn’t confirm anything either way.

‘Sorry, sir.’ Lorne was looking more unhappy by the moment.

‘How’s Carson’s cure for the system coming?’ John asked, hopefully.

‘We are not supposed to tell you that either,’ Radek told him.

‘We’re confident that we’ll cure the system,’ said Lorne, as if reading from a prepared speech.

Comprehension struck John like a hammer. They were feeding him information as if it was going straight to Todd. They were waiting for him to ask questions so they could filter through misleading information.

John decided to test his suspicion. ‘How about the Daedalus?’

‘It will likely be sent out to fight off the hive,’ said Lorne. ‘We’ve been able to match the Asgard beams to the hive’s modifications.’

Oh yeah. That sounded like bullshit.

‘Guys,’ said John, tiredly. ‘Cut the crap. None of this is getting to Todd. If you can’t tell me something, fine.’

Another exchanged glance between them and Radek blew out a sigh.

‘Sorry, Colonel.’

‘It would make sense,’ John told him. ‘ _If_ I was still connected to the hive. But I’m not, so you’re wasting your time.’

There was silence. Neither of them contradicted him, but they weren’t exactly jumping to agree either.

It did make perfect sense to direct your enemy with false information, John just couldn’t help but feel betrayed to be treated like the enemy. Even if it was him who’d betrayed them.

‘I must get back to the systems,’ said Radek. ‘I will be back to see you.’

Any other time, John would have suspected that to be an excuse to leave. Given the circumstances, however, Radek probably did need to get back to fighting the infection.

Lorne left with Radek, offering another sheepish apology as he backed out of the room.

John cursed at the room. Todd was orbiting around the planet. That’s all they’d told him. The status of the infection could be anything from just about taking over to completely cleared, they’d want to trick Todd either way.

As if it hadn’t been obviously enough that they didn’t trust him, John felt as though they’d rubbed salt in the wound.

John didn’t blame Radek or Lorne, realistically he’d didn’t blame any of them, but Radek and Lorne would have been sent because they would have wanted to update him honestly. So O’Neill would have known that if John was expecting anyone, John would be expecting them, or maybe Carson.

Maybe that meant Carson was still working on a counter infection. John hoped not. If Todd had moved closer, then they needed the counter infection to already be working.

John wasn’t sure what Todd would do now. He could wait it out, hang around to see if the infection was going to take hold despite counter measures, that could take days; Todd could be very patient. Or he could launch the attack immediately, send Rodney and Mehra down in the first wave and get them to seed the system some more while Rodney aided the infection against Radek’s attempts to clear it.

Todd might take the first option, that way he could just leave if the infection didn’t succeed. But then he’d struggle to get the same opportunity to take Atlantis and Todd knew of the benefit of Atlantis’s technology and he wanted the city as his base. No, John thought Todd would take the second option. He would launch an immediate attack. The simple fact that Todd had moved from the moon to the planet meant he probably was about to attack.

Time crawled by. John didn’t know how much. It passed slowly, as if reluctantly, leaving John starving for distraction, for information.

Then Radek burst in, glasses slightly askew. He wasn’t composed like he has been with Lorne and John was instantly alert.

‘Radek?’

‘They are in the city,’ Radek explained, puffing, he’d clearly run down to give John the news.

‘How bad?’ asked John, fear cutting through him; _he could not be captured again_. But also hope. Rodney could be in the city.

‘We have marines trapped, small areas quarantined off, but still have control of most systems.’ Radek seemed to be getting his breath back.

‘How long, Radek, how long have they been here?’

Mehra and Rodney could infect the system like he did. Had he told them that?

‘An hour,’ said Radek. ‘About an hour. Rodney is here, he is fighting our counter measures.’

_Rodney_. But that was bad news. Todd stood a much higher chance of winning with Rodney in the city.

‘Radek,’ said John urgently. ‘Rodney and Mehra can infect the system like I did.’

Radek looked less alarmed then John had expected. ‘O’Neill ordered us to assume they all would.’

Nothing John could say was likely to convince them that it was only Rodney and Mehra, so John just nodded.

Radek came all the way up to his bed. ‘I believe we will have continued control over the gate and will still have the Daedalus so there is an evacuation plan.’

Radek squeezed his hand, which John thought was brave of him given the seed incident.

‘Many of us do not truly believe you are still with Todd. It is precaution only. If it comes to evacuation, we will not leave you here.’

That was both incredibly disturbing and extremely touching.

‘Doctor Zelenka!’

John peered past Radek to see a pissed off marine at the door.

‘You’re not supposed to be here, are you?’ questioned John, studying Radek.

Radek gave him a crooked smile. ‘I will see you later Colonel.’

‘Good luck Radek,’ said John as Radek was escorted out.

The doors slammed shut behind him.


	4. Chapter 4

John lay in the infirmary bed and plotted. He couldn’t stay still and do nothing, there was no question of that. He was responsible for the current mess his city was in and had to do his damn best to fix it, and help those who Todd had altered. Those who could be saved anyway, those who had become drones were already essentially brain dead.

The problem was each and every member of the hive knew him, knew his mind and therefore knew his likely actions. There was no question of him standing by and doing nothing and therefore they would be expecting to find him fighting. But they also knew that O’Neill, or Woolsey for that matter, would not have let him fight. So they’d be expecting him to break out and arm himself to join the fight anyway. Which was a problem because that was exactly what he needed to do.

They would have an ambush by the armory. The flip side of the coin was that John knew them, and so he knew that’s where they’d be. John knew this meant he couldn’t go to the armory, which was a pain because he needed weapons.

Particularly as Rodney would be well guarded.

Last time he’d spoken to O’Neill the conversation had been abrupt and unfriendly, but it had been broken off early. A Sergeant had entered to tell O’Neill that they had lost Rodney’s position, they had previously known where Rodney was because he’d been messing up Atlantis’s systems.

John knew where Rodney would be headed. When he’d been on the hive (been part of the hive) John had been aware of the details of invading Atlantis. He’d passed on everything he could remember, but in regards to the seed he’d told them it needed infect the systems through the control crystals, which it did. However, when John had heard they’d lost track of Rodney he’d remembered something else. A fleeting thought from Rodney that the infection would take hold faster if it was seeded in the ZPM room. That hadn’t been a priority because the original plan had been that the systems would be thoroughly infected by the time the hive arrived.

However, the plan had been seriously disrupted. John was certain Rodney would be speeding up the infection by initiating a new site at the ZPM. When he’d mentioned this to O’Neill, O’Neill had dismissed it, saying the ZPM room was well guarded. John begged to differ. It wasn’t well guarded enough unless it was locked down with bulkheads with a platoon of marines outside if it was where Todd wanted Rodney to get to.

Rodney was also the single most important member of the hive in relation to the takeover. Certainly the others had access to his thought process, but it was Rodney’s genius and complete understanding of the system that could tip the balance in their favour.

So John needed to break out, he needed weapons and he needed to be acting unpredictably otherwise Todd’s people would counter every move before he’d even made it.

Acting either stupid, or simply out of character was the best thing he could possibly do. It was damn stupid for him to go after Rodney in particular when he was so emotionally involved with Rodney, and there was one thing he was sure they’d never expect of him.

As for weapons, that wasn’t a problem. There was at least one guard posted outside the isolation chamber after all.

John had already been working on break out as well. Carson had downgraded the restraints to just wrists and ankles again, although O’Neill had refused to have them removed completely. But John had been subtly tugged on them for a while now, weakening them.

John could feel the one on his left arm giving. He tugged at, for once grateful of his increased strength, and felt it give some more. One more sharp tug and it snapped, leaving John’s wrist red and sore, but that would heal (and creepily fast thanks to the iratus DNA). Quickly and John reached over and freed his right arm. Then he sat up and removed the restraints from his ankles.

John swung himself off the bed and staggered from being immobile too long. If anyone was watching him he was going to get nowhere. A few quick stretches and he was feeling better.

First things first. John moved to the bench where Carson had put his various medical instruments, and grabbed a syringe. Sedative, Carson had said, enough to put him out for most of a day if necessary. Since he still had the iratus DNA; enough to put him out for most of a day was enough to put Rodney out for most of a day. He grabbed some bandages too.

Stopping in front of the isolation door John waved a hand over the controls.

‘Okay,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Let’s hope this works.’

As he waved his hand over the controls John mentally asked Atlantis to let him out. Ancient technology had always responded to him, but John was still surprised when the doors obediently parted. He would’ve expected any isolation room to be harder to escape from.

There was only one marine guarding him, no doubt everyone else was fighting for the city.

John acted swiftly, moving into the guy’s personal space and wrenching the P90 from him before he knew what had hit him. But then, he hadn’t been expecting John to try and escape, he knew he was only there as a precaution.

‘Hey-’ the guy yelped as John twisted his arm behind his back and stole his 9mm and knife. The marine glared up at him.

‘Sorry,’ said John. ‘I need these. Get yourself to the armory when you wake up.’

‘When I wake up?’ asked the marine, confused, trying to struggle against John’s hold.

‘Yeah.’ John hit him in the side of the head and the guy crumpled to the floor. John hoped he hadn’t given him a concussion, Atlantis needed as many people to defend it as possible. There was a life-signs detector in the guy’s tack vest, John went to take that too and decided on the whole vest. He stashed the sedative and bandages in it.

He went to leave, then stopped and took the guy’s boots as well. They were slightly too big, but not enough to make running difficult.

John hurried to the ZPM room, avoiding any and all life-signs. Chances were, if he’d been discovered missing, there’d be a shoot on sight order for him. O’Neill was fighting a battle for the city, he didn’t need any unknown elements like John running around.

There weren’t as many people about as he’d expected. Radek had told him Todd had managed trap some marines, but John hadn’t realised that he’d meant a significant number.

As he skidded into the hall outside the ZPM room, John heard gun fire and then silence from along the corridor. He ducked into a hall way and waited, heart pounding.

He could see from the life signs detector that there were three life-signs heading towards him and the ZPM room. Hopefully Rodney and two guards, because if it wasn’t then John’s plan was screwed. Although maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing. John considered his plan to be a worst case scenario plan that was bound to haunt him later, but this was a worst case scenario. John closed his eyes briefly. This was a bad idea. But it was a bad idea by his standards, which was the point. It was something he would never do.

It was too late for second thoughts anyway. John looked at the life signs detector. The people were very close now, John could either stay where he was and be discovered, or act.

John acted, darting out with P90 raised and identified two drones and Rodney. He was briefly surprised it was two drones, then realised Todd’s forces would be spread thin. He shot the two drones. Now time was counting down because once one of the hive saw him, they all had. And they would need to protect Rodney, not only because he was hive but because he was key to the mission.

Rodney cringed to the side, flinching at each bullet and then scrambled for his own side arm. On impulse, John tried to reach out with his mind to Rodney, then recoiled, disgusted with himself.

‘Don’t,’ said John, aiming his P90.

Rodney froze, then his face lit up and guilt poured over John because he wasn’t who Rodney wanted him to be.

‘John!’ he called, then in true Rodney fashion started babbling. ‘We thought they’d killed you! I mean we knew they’d done _something_ to you, and, and we were so worried!’ Rodney tilted his head to one side clearly considering the rest of hive. ‘We can help you, give you back the hive.’

John didn’t want to have this conversation. _Shouldn’t_ be having this conversation. Both he and Rodney knew it would go nowhere and he needed to move, he had to continue with his plan.

Rodney had paused again and was looking at him. ‘I, um, I’ve got to go in there.’

He pointed straight past John to the ZPM room.

‘You know I can’t let you do that,’ said John, quietly.

Rodney started moving towards him.

‘Damn it, Rodney,’ said John. He had to continue, he _had_ to. The problem with carrying out a plan of things you would never do, was that it’s very difficult to actually do them.

Rodney looked longingly at him and John nearly had to look away. ‘We’ll bring you back John. But right now I need to get to the ZPM.’

That was Todd’s instructions overriding Rodney’s independence, John could see it. ‘Stay there.’

This was pointless, he should be acting decisively. He was _wasting time_.

‘You won’t shoot me,’ said Rodney with his slanted smile and an absolute confidence that shook John right down to the core.

He was right obviously. John would never shoot him. But nor could he afford to get into a hand-to-hand fight with him, there was no way he’d hold Rodney still enough to administer the sedative, and while he was trying Todd would be sending other hive members to Rodney. And John had no doubt there’d be some nearby as back up if Rodney needed them.

John aimed carefully and fired. He caught Rodney right in the gut, John flinched. Rodney jerked in pain, surprise written across his face, and then collapsed to his knees before falling the rest of the way to the floor.

John ran forward and dropped down next to him, pulling Rodney close to him and putting pressure on the wound. It wasn’t as bad as the wound that Morrison had given him, and that had healed. He could not look at Rodney’s face. He didn’t need to see the betrayal there… but then again he owed it to Rodney. John looked down into Rodney’s face.

Rodney stared at him, clearly in pain but being shielded from it by Mehra. At least the hive was good for something. ‘You… you… but…?’

Rodney sounded just as betrayed as he looked. It felt like a punch to the gut and John couldn’t hold his gaze. He took out a bandage and expertly dressed Rodney’s wound, still holding Rodney close to him. ‘God, Rodney, I’m so sorry.’

‘What did they do to you,’ Rodney whispered, then whimpered when John applied more pressure. John swallowed and forced himself to keep working. ‘You would never have done this, they’ve… they’ve given you brain damage or something.’

John didn’t respond. He felt a bit like he had brain damage.

Rodney’s eyes widened when John took out the syringe. ‘What’s that?’

John wanted so very badly to reassure him. Rodney clearly thought it was stage one of the cure, and was terrified, just as John had been, of losing the hive. But he wanted Todd to know as little as possible, so Rodney had to be kept in the dark too. Even if it was tearing him apart to watch Rodney, terrified and in pain; and all because of him.

John held Rodney’s arm steady and injected him. ‘I really am sorry.’

He started dragging Rodney down the corridor before the sedative had kicked in. He’d hesitated too long and more of the hive would be headed his way. Probably Stackhouse and drones because Mehra would have her own task.

‘You know we’ll help you!’ argued Rodney, voice hitched from the pain. ‘You know how good it is being part of the hive! I’ve got to get to the ZPM, then we can all live as part of the hive on Atlantis.’

Rodney’s voice was high pitched and panicky but was also slurring. John breathed a sigh of relief when the sedative kicked in and Rodney slumped.

‘I’m so sorry,’ John said again. ‘I’m so damn sorry, Rodney.’

John picked Rodney up and kept going, hating himself every step of the way.

The next stage was just as hard, because he couldn’t take Rodney to the infirmary. That’s the first place the hive would look for him and John couldn’t let them have Rodney back. Partly for purely selfish reasons. John had convinced Rodney to give in, to accept what Todd was doing and now he couldn’t continue to condemn Rodney to that fate, even if Rodney thought he wanted it. Even if it was so much easier for Rodney to understand people when he knew everything they were thinking.

But it was partly for practical reasons too. Rodney knew Atlantis’s systems better than anyone, and could get past anything that Zelenka threw at him to prevent Todd taking over Atlantis. With Rodney no longer working to take control, it would be so much harder for Todd.

No matter what happened John’s number one priority was to save Atlantis and his people. He had helped cause this and he needed to stop it. Therefore if Rodney disappeared off the grid then he couldn’t aid Todd. If no-one knew where he was then no-one could be forced to tell Todd. Unfortunately at least one person had to know, and that was John himself.

John had been careful when he’d fired on Rodney. He’d aimed so that Rodney would heal, he hoped. He wished he could take him to the infirmary.

Instead he needed to put Rodney somewhere no-one in the hive would think of. Which therefore needed to be somewhere John would never consider. So John had thought hard about all the places he’d initially dismissed.

He had to leave Rodney somewhere safe, where he wouldn’t be found by Todd and wouldn’t be in the middle of the fighting. John dearly wanted to leave him sealed in a puddle jumper, but anything that he wanted to do he couldn’t. There were plenty of hiding places in the city John knew about, frustratingly he kept running into the problem that if he knew about them then so did the hive.

He’d even considered Ronon’s quarters because it would be downright stupid to leave Rodney in Ronon’s quarters because of Ronon’s intense hatred of wraith, but Ronon was team and so his quarters were too obvious.

Finally John had settled on a place which was such a strange choice he kept wanting to think of somewhere else. Except that was the point. So he carried Rodney into Woolsey’s quarters.

It had been surprisingly easy to get there. There wasn’t much fighting around the living quarters, but John had had to avoid Lorne as he and a team of marines hurried by.

John glanced down at Rodney and swallowed bile. There was a significant amount of blood and it would have been a confronting sight had John _not_ done it himself. The thought that he had….

But he’d _had_ to. Rodney was the key to Todd succeeding, he was the expert on Atlantis’s systems, he was the genius. And he too could produce seed and infect the system with it.

John knew he’d thought this through, knew he’d had no other guaranteed method of stopping Rodney, but he still felt he was merely justifying himself for something he should never have done.

Woolsey had a large wooden wardrobe. John didn’t remember it, so he assumed Woolsey had acquired it when Atlantis had been on Earth. It reminded John strongly of when Woolsey had had the urge to bring a new conference table to Pegasus.

John opened the wardrobe door, and then gently placed Rodney on the floor of the wardrobe, with one of Woolsey’s suits as a pillow. Carefully, John arranged Rodney so that his position wouldn’t aggravate his back.

Next, he removed the bandage and inspected the wound. It was relatively clean but still bleeding, but John was sure it would heal with no lasting damage. Mostly sure. He applied pressure as he redressed the wound.

John bent down and kissed Rodney lightly on the top of his head and closed the wardrobe doors, which had a lock on them. It didn’t take much to find the key, Woolsey’s room was exceptionally ordered. John locked the doors and stepped back, trying not to imagine Rodney lying on the floor in the dark.

John felt sick again and ran a hand through his hair. Rodney was claustrophobic and he’d just locked him in a small dark space after shooting and sedating him.

Jesus Christ he’d shot Rodney. He’d _shot Rodney_.

John staggered into Woolsey’s en suite bathroom and threw up. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten and ended up heaving up bile until his throat burned.

Trembling all over, John tried to block out the image of Rodney’s disbelief when he’d shot him. He couldn’t. It was like that moment had been seared onto his retina. But John knew he couldn’t stay with Rodney, he had to make sure Rodney wouldn’t be found. Casting a last look at the wardrobe, John left Woolsey’s quarters.

The sedative would last for a day. If John hadn’t been able to get Rodney to the infirmary by then it would probably mean that Atlantis had fallen. Because if they couldn’t get the hive members out of Atlantis by then the infection would have spread through the system. In which case it was probably kinder for Rodney to be on the winning side anyway so it wouldn’t matter if he woke up and got help from the hive.

He just hoped he wasn’t leaving Rodney to bleed out.

John hurried back towards the auxiliary power room. From there he could shut down the internal life signs detector. It would hamper his own side’s forces for sure, but it would also prevent Todd from finding Rodney.

John barrelled down a staircase, he was nearly there, he just needed to-

‘Stop!’

John froze, cursing himself for not keeping an eye on the life signs detector. It was Lorne’s voice, no doubt at the top of the stairs with his marines.

‘Get on the floor!’ yelled Lorne.

Terrific. They weren’t messing about then. But John couldn’t afford to be caught by Lorne, he had to stop Rodney from being found.

‘Sorry, major.’ John dived down the stairs.

A bang, followed by a flash of pain behind his right ear told John all he needed to know about Lorne’s orders. John hit the flat ground and rolled to the side, out of Lorne’s line of fire and sprinted away down the corridor in the opposite direction to which he wanted to go. He’d just have to loop around.

John ducked down another corridor and checked the life signs detector, which confirmed that he’d managed to lose Lorne. Hardly surprising considering his increased speed.

John pressed a hand below his ear, and it came away bloody. That didn’t matter, it would heal, but if John’s reflexes had been a little bit slower in diving down the stairs it would’ve hit him squarely in the back of the head. Shoot to kill orders. He’d escaped when he’d been told to stay put and so now they considered him one of the enemy. John had expected it, he’d known it would be the only sensible assumption, but it still hurt.

He continued around until he was approaching the auxiliary power room.

There was a fight going on outside. It was where Radek had decided he could best counter Rodney’s moves to take over the system and Radek had clearly had to barricade himself it.

There were two marines already dead. John forced himself not to look at their faces, there was only so much he could deal with.

Major Dorsey and a drone were still fighting a third marine; Lieutenant Davis. John refused to think of the drone’s name, that man was gone, however, part of Dorsey’s personality still remained.

John aimed and took down the drone, Dorsey took no notice. He was too focused on Davis, whom he’d just stabbed in the chest. Advancing down the corridor, John emptied his clip into Dorsey, hating himself for it. There was a chance he’d had enough personality left to be saved.

Davis was on the floor, trying to aim his gun at John. Running over, John applied pressure to the stab wound, noting that Davis had also been shot.

‘Off,’ Davis choked through his pain. ‘Get off me!’

Then he swung a punch at John’s head. John dodged the punch and attempted to hold Davis down.

‘Hold still, Lieutenant, I need to stop the bleeding.’

It was probably an empty gesture, as John knew Davis’s wounds were severe, but he thought if he could just stop the bleeding then maybe, just maybe, he might survive. But Davis kept fighting him, which only increased the bleeding.

‘Damn it, Davis,’ snapped John. ‘I’m trying to help!’

Davis gasped back at him and then lay still. Slowly, John reached forward and felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one. Defeated, he lent back.

‘Perhaps you should come in.’ The voice, in a distinctive Czech accent came from behind him.

John turned around to find Radek poking his head out of the control room.

‘Although,’ Radek continued, ‘some may consider it counter-productive to invite in one who looks like a murderous clown, no?’

‘I- what?’ asked John, completely put out.

Radek gave him the once over. ‘Ah. You should not look in a mirror then.’

John looked down at himself. The ill-fitting green infirmary scrubs were covered in dust and blood and the trousers were tucked into too large boots. The dried blood on his face probably did complete the picture of, like Radek had said, a murderous clown. John hated clowns.

Leaving the door open as an invitation, Radek disappeared back into the room.

John stepped back from Davis and followed him inside, sincerely hoping Radek was alone in there. If not, John was probably going to find himself dodging bullets again.

The workstation Radek had chosen was a mass of wires and computers, with the man himself in the middle of it all. John identified the area that controlled Atlantis’s internal life signs, a few crystals from that should shut it down effectively. And with everyone combating the infection it would take a while before someone managed to reroute it.

John sat down on the floor with his back to Radek’s work station and felt numb. It was hard to think, hard to complete his plan.

‘Aren’t you supposed to have shot me my now?’ he asked Radek tiredly.

‘Shooting is not my job.’ Radek peered at him over the mass of computers. ‘Also, after several years working with you, I would not consider an infirmary escape out of character.’

John snorted.

‘Getting anywhere with the infection?’

Radek shrugged and turned back to the computer. ‘Further than expected. Rodney has stopped countering my attempts.’

That figured. Although it still didn’t sound promising.

‘How about you Colonel, it has been a difficult week.’ Radek was peering at him again.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Hmm,’ said Radek noncommittally. ‘I hope once we’re through this you will be able to forgive yourself. It wasn’t your fault.’

‘I said-’ complained John, irritated.

‘Ah, but you lied.’ Radek had gone back to his computers and was working steadily.

John let his head fall back on the work station with a thud.

He couldn’t stay there. He had to get up and break the internal life-signs detector. John got up, trying to look casual and began pacing around the room. He stopped near what he hoped was the right panel and opened it. No reaction from Radek, he was clearly absorbed in his counter measures.

Reaching in, John quickly removed two crystals.

‘Do prdele!’ exclaimed Zelenka immediately. ‘It is not possible! The infection is not in that section!’

Then he looked up quickly and saw John, standing near the open crystal tray. ‘Ah.’

‘Um…’ John wasn’t quite sure how to explain without giving the game away. Radek was sure to call someone on him now.

‘Somehow I doubt it was the plumbing you were going for?’

John looked at the crystals he was holding and then gingerly replaced them. ‘No. I was looking for life-signs actually.’

‘I see.’ Radek pushed his glasses up his nose, as if to illustrate the point. ‘Where is Rodney?’

Oh. He really did see. John looked sheepish again and felt a pang of guilt again. ‘Well…’

‘Say no more,’ said Radek, putting up a hand. He got up and opened another crystal tray, carefully selected a crystal and handed it to John. ‘Here.’

John stepped over and hesitantly took at crystal. ‘Uh… thanks?’

There was a twinkle Radek’s eye. ‘This will go much faster without Rodney aiding the infection.’

‘Yeah,’ said John, tucking the crystal into his tack vest. ‘I thought so.’

Radek returned to his work station. ‘I recommend you leave, I had requested reinforcements before you arrived. They were a way off, but will be arriving soon.’

John gave Radek a half smile. ‘Thanks, I owe you one.’

Ducking out of the room, John jogged off, heading for a quiet part of the city. He needed to decide his next move.

John ran on, focusing on the pounding rhythm of his feet. He didn’t get as far as he would have liked before the reality of the situation hit him.

John’s legs felt like jelly and he sat down against the railing, shivering hard. His teeth were chattering and he couldn’t stop it. John closed his eyes and figured he’d probably been about due a freak out.

‘Shit,’ John muttered. ‘ _Fuck_.’

He’d betrayed his people, left some of them behind in enemy hands and then he’d gone as far to shoot Rodney for Christ’s sake. Now he was in the middle of a war being fought between two sides, both containing his own people and both of which were likely to shoot him. John knew he’d been in some bad situations, but this one really took the cake.

‘Thought you were supposed to be attacking us?’

John just about leapt out of his skin at the intrusion. His eyes flew open, and he was up on his feet before he even managed to register what had been said.

Ronon stood only a few meters away, gun hanging loosely from his hand, which was by his side. John wasn’t fooled by the casual pose; Ronon could shoot him in under a second. So much for having time for a mild breakdown.

John was still trying to get his breath back, and waved a hand in Ronon’s direction. The universal sign for, ‘give me a moment.’ Or John hoped it was universal, or at the very least, for Ronon to have picked up on it by now.

‘Apparently,’ John belatedly managed to reply.

Ronon grinned.

‘What?’ asked John.

Before he could react, Ronon had stepped forward and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Knew Carson’s cure had worked.’

John flinched away, bewildered. ‘ _What?_ Not that I don’t appreciate it, but how the hell did you come to that conclusion?’

‘Heard you’d broken out,’ Ronon said simply.

‘Hate to break it to you Chewy, but isn’t that an argument for me _not_ being myself again?’ John was confused. Ronon was a good strategist when he wanted to be, but this was one line of reasoning John couldn’t quite follow.

‘Yeah. But you wouldn’t have pulled McKay from the fight.’

John didn’t know what to say to that, sometimes Ronon’s insight surprised him. ‘I guess not?’

Ronon shrugged back. ‘You should come to the chair room, O’Neill’s struggling.’

‘You were _looking_ for me?’ asked John, because there was no reason for Ronon to be in this part of the city, there was no much fighting around this area, which was why John had chosen it.

‘Yeah,’ said Ronon, then; ‘Just went past Zelenka, saw you coming out and followed.’

John winced. Even with his advanced senses he still hadn’t noticed Ronon.

‘Right, but I don’t think O’Neill’s gonna feel particularly thrilled to let me take over,’ John pointed out.

‘He will.’

Sometimes, Ronon’s confidence was very useful, reassuring even. Not in this case, but John could hardly spend the rest of the fight holed up and hoping for the best.

‘Let’s go then.’


	5. Chapter 5

As John had predicted, O’Neill was less than happy to see him. Although actually seeing O’Neill was a step better than John had expected, the guards on the door had allowed him through on the basis that he was Ronon’s captive.

O’Neill had been sitting up in the chair yelling at Radek over the radio, but he quickly stopped when Ronon and John entered.

‘Sergeant, Corporal,’ said O’Neill to the two marines inside the chair room. ‘Escort Colonel Sheppard back to the isolation room.’

‘No, don’t,’ said John, levelling a stare at the marines, before remembering his new stare was with creepy wraith eyes. ‘Just wait a second.’

‘He’s not with Todd,’ said Ronon, succinctly.

O’Neill glared. ‘We can’t know that.’

‘You can’t get the chair to work for you anymore,’ said John, attracting O’Neill’s attention again.

O’Neill gestured at the chair and, by extension, Atlantis’s systems. ‘It’s part _wraith_ now.’

John couldn’t miss the accusation there, but he knew why Ronon had suggested he try. ‘So am I.’

There was a cold pause. O’Neill looked him up and down and John remembered the murderous clown look.

John placed both the P90 and the 9mm on the floor and stepped back. ‘Feel better?

‘Oh, like the weight of the world has dropped from my shoulders.’ O’Neill turned to his guards. ‘Search him.

John removed his tack vest and two marines searched it. One marine held up the empty syringe.

‘Why’s that there?’ asked O’Neill.

‘I don’t know,’ lied John, looking puzzled. ‘It’s not my tack vest, I nicked it.’

Which he had.

Then the other marine pulled out the control crystal. ‘Sir!’

‘And what’s that?’

John shrugged. ‘Looks like a control crystal.’

‘O’Neill rolled his eyes. ‘What’s it doing there?’

‘Like I said; not my tack vest,’ said John. ‘I guess it must be a spare.’

O’Neill fixed him with a hard stare. ‘You escaped, attacked a marine and have been running around doing God knows what in the last few hours. Tell me why I shouldn’t lock you up again?’

John shrugged again. ‘You should.’

O’Neill rolled his eyes. ‘Get in the damn chair, Sheppard!’

John didn’t need telling twice. If O’Neill was willing to risk it, then the system was probably pretty far gone. He sat down in the chair and really hoped that it worked.

Atlantis’s connection increased ten-fold, right on cue and it was stretching through his mind. John sat up abruptly, jerking away from it. O’Neill raised an eyebrow at him.

‘What? Don’t tell me it won’t work.’

Okay, John could understand his irritation there. If you take a risk, you’re generally hoping for some kind of benefit from it.

‘No,’ said John, a little hesitantly. ‘No, it worked. It was just a little…. different.’

It had been different, in fact, not only had it been beyond unnerving to have something in his head again but Atlantis’s systems now felt somewhere between Ancient technology and the hive mind. And that was not cool, but O’Neill was making an irritated ‘get on with it’ gesture and they really needed to keep control over the system.

John lent back again, and very carefully did _not_ flinch as it blossomed through his mind again like those freaky wraith connecting things. Which he was definitely not thinking about.

John reached out for the drones, because Todd would have shut those down immediately or O’Neill would have blown him out of the sky even with the hive’s new modifications. The drones stayed firmly out of reach. Weird, since John could feel the systems just like usual. He tried again with the same result and the shield but that was doing the same thing. Definitely strange. It was almost like… well it was like someone else was in the system preventing him from accessing them.

Shit.

Of course there was someone else in the system, that was part of the plan after all. John hardly needed reminding of the wraith telepathic ability and it had been the _whole damn point_ of infecting the system in the first point. It was Todd, controlling whatever areas he could from the hive, and yeah, John could feel the areas where Todd was enforcing the quarantine.

But he couldn’t actually feel Todd’s mind directly. Small mercies. If he had, John couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t be jumping from the chair and running to the most isolated part of the city possible. Or getting the hell out of the city entirely because Todd was in the system now and that was just… yeah. Pretty crappy.

Individual programs started lighting up like a Christmas tree in his mind and no, no damn it, he hadn’t been seriously about running off so the stardrive could just _power the fuck down_. Thankfully it did. John really hoped no one had connected that to him because otherwise O’Neill was going to have him shot or something.

Although… that could have been a good sign, because Todd didn’t want to take Atlantis anywhere but John had still been able to do that. Accidentally, sure, but it had still worked. Right. Of course. He had been control, partly because Todd was still on the hive and his connection was more direct through the chair, but John had the advantage of having the wraith DNA (and it was really weird thinking of that as an advantage) and the ATA gene which actually meant he had better access.

So first, he was going to free those trapped marines, because Todd wouldn’t want to risk control over the shield and weapons to stop John from doing that. And, yeah, _there_ was that resistance trying to stop him from removing the quarantine, but if he just concentrated…..

Yes!

The quarantine went down. And John was feeling more than a bit smug about that because if Todd had had any influence left then there was no way he would have let John do that. And maybe that had been worrying John a bit. Or more than a bit.

John concentrated on Atlantis as a whole and he could feel it, the infection spreading, and there was no way Carson had finished that virus thing he’d been working on, because the infection was spreading unchecked. No. Not completely unchecked. John was aware of Zelenka diverting it, preventing it from spreading to all essential systems, and that was what had stopped Todd from quarantining the whole damn city according to plan.

A flare of infection started up in an area where it really, really couldn’t have got to on its own and John frowned. What was causing that? Oh. Not, what, but _who_. Clearly they hadn’t caught Mehra yet and she was seeding the crystals, which was just a pain because the last thing John needed was for Todd to have _more_ control.

John spoke to O’Neill without breaking his connection. ‘Mehra’s infecting the system from the-’ Wait, where was that? ‘ From the east peer secondary research labs.’

And they’d better actually listen to him and stop her, but John figured they trusted him enough to give him access to the chair, so they probably would. Chances were, Ronon would go.

Meanwhile, John was going to try and wrestle drones back from Todd, even if the word ‘drones’ now reminded him not so much of the weapons but of those people who Todd had stolen their personalities as well as their independence. He really needed control of the drones, because more than anything else he really, really, wanted to just blow that bastard out the sky.

Todd wasn’t giving up the drones though, which was incredibly frustrating but if he just concentrated harder, like he had with the quarantine and he almost had it… but no, it was sliding away again. Damn it. John tried again, tried to reach into the system like he had so many times before but... Whoa. What the hell was _that_? Another system, a new system? No, it didn’t feel like a new system, it felt old, it felt very, very old and, oh shit, that was the wraith hiveship. Partly connected to Atlantis, and damn because he’d _known_ Todd wanted to try that but it had been an idea for after they’d taken Atlantis. Todd must have brought it forward, and John didn’t have to guess why, it was clearly increasing his control over the Atlantis. John was going to have to do something about that.

Apparently doing something about that was going to have to wait because the connection dissolved and John, disorientated, was confused. He shouldn’t have been thrown out of the interface; Todd didn’t have that much control. That didn’t make sense.

Comprehension dawned only when John hit the floor, hard. Someone had physically pulled him out the chair. John scrabbled into a sitting position, worried the hive members had gained access to the chair room… and found several marines looking at him over P90’s while O’Neill glared down at him.

‘Uh…’ John managed. What the hell had he done now?

‘’Must be a spare’,’ O’Neill mocked, holding up the control crystal.

‘Oh,’ said John uselessly. ‘That.’

‘They sent someone to help Zelenka fix it,’ said Ronon, lurking in the background with an unconcerned expression, and shouldn’t he have left to get Mehra? O’Neill must have kept him around to guard the chair room, or possibly to help keep an eye on John. ‘He said he was too busy.’

O’Neill handed a marine the crystal. ‘Get this back to Zelenka. And ask him how he failed to notice it go missing.’

‘No!’ John scrambled to his feet and was greeted by the sound of marines readying their P90s. He froze again.

O’Neill studied him. ‘Why not?’

‘The infections spread far enough for Todd to have access to the city’s internal life signs,’ John explained, and he hadn’t wanted to explain this, hadn’t even wanted to _think_ about it, but he was one wrong move from ending up back in the isolation room. ‘I don’t think it would be a good thing for him to find Rodney.’

O’Neill motioned for the marine holding the crystal to stop. ‘Oh? And where is Doctor McKay.’

John looked him in the eye. ‘Out of the way. Which is where he needs to stay if we’re going to win this.’

‘Let him back in the chair,’ Ronon rumbled from his corner.

O’Neill gestured at the chair in a slightly sarcastic ‘go ahead’ motion and turned to the marine. ‘Gimme that.’

John hurriedly sat back in the chair, because he’d felt the _hiveship_ for God’s sake. O’Neill’s voice stopped him before he leant back.

‘Oh, colonel?’

‘Yeah?’ asked John, warily.

‘Anything else you wanted to mention?’ O’Neill had this expression that suggested that if John failed to confess anything else important then he was a dead man.

‘No,’ said John and then added, for good measure, ‘Sir.’

O’Neill looked far from convinced, but didn’t say anything else so John leant back and yeah he was definitely messed up, because having Atlantis’s systems in his mind had never creeped him out before. Of course, Atlantis hadn’t been part wraith before either.

John concentrated hard on the connection and there it was. That presence, of something _old_ in a way Atlantis didn’t feel old, John supposed that was because the city didn’t age like a hiveship, seeing as hiveships were largely organic.

And quite probably this was a really bad idea. On the same scale as attacking a hiveship singlehanded in an F302, but not on the same scale as the last plan he’d carried out so John figured he’d go right ahead and try to connect to the hiveship.

If he just followed the link then maybe…. And oh yeah that was weird. He could barely feel himself in the chair anymore, it was like he was _part_ of the hiveship and no, he was not going to concentrate on being part of anything _wraith_ because that way lay madness and John had a city to save. Also, right there for the taking was navigation, life support was playing hard to catch, probably because it wasn’t meant to be messed with, but navigation was open.

So it wasn’t quite as good and blowing the thing out of the sky, but ramming it into the atmosphere would still be pretty satisfying, and there was no way Todd would be expecting his own hiveship to start acting up. He’d never see it coming.

John fired the engines and felt the hive move towards the planet, and he gave it coordinates to aim for. Away from Atlantis. As far away from Atlantis as possible because they didn’t have shields and the kind of tidal wave the hive would make even if it didn’t make it through the atmosphere in one piece was not something John wanted near his city. Particularly as Rodney wouldn’t be there to restore shields. And God he hoped Rodney stayed unconscious for this, because losing Todd was going to cause real damage to the mind web.

Assuming, of course, Todd died in the crash. Which John hoped he would, because it wasn’t on his to do list to go down in a jumper specially to fire a drone at him.

Except, crap, Todd had realised what was going on and the hive was trying to re-establish orbit.

‘Oh, _hell_ no,’ said John, out loud and his voice sounded scarily far away, but damn O’Neill was definitely going to think he’d lost the plot.

John fired the hive’s engines again and he could feel Todd fighting to gain control, but John figured he must have been pretty absorbed in Atlantis’s system because the hive was too far gone and it was definitely going down.

Although there was another tug, but the hive was still going down. Oh, crap. The hive was going down all right, but Todd had managed to change the direction and now it was going to go down directly over Atlantis and screw the tidal wave because Atlantis had far bigger problems now.

John tried to fire the engines again, but Todd had full control now, and the hive was pretty committed to taking a dive.

He had to try. He really, really, _really_ had to keep trying because with no shields….

Except it was worse than Todd having control over the hive because John was losing the connection completely, and no, that couldn’t happen, that really couldn’t happen. It was a jolt, like someone had just hooked him up to low voltage battery and then John was back in Atlantis’s systems and bad didn’t even begin to cover it.

And he had no time to worry about what the hell had caused that to happen because shields had just become a serious priority and he could definitely hear O’Neill shouting at someone. Probably he was actually shouting at John, but John didn’t have time to listen.

Todd was hanging on to the shields with the kind of stubbornness John associated with Woolsey when he needed you to finish month old paperwork.

That hive had to be getting close now, but the system was feeling decidedly… what? Weird, the system felt, the only word John had to describe it was dizzy. Yeah. The system felt dizzy. And then, inexplicably, John had control of shields and _engage_ , damn it, _engage now_. The shield engaged, John felt it shudder reluctantly through the city before, almost immediately, its power started depleting rapidly.

No, that was exactly what John didn’t need. That power was essential to keep it up because the kind of hit a (mostly) whole hiveship would cause would deplete power like a…. exactly like it was depleting now. And shit that must have been close.

John hung on to the shield until there simply wasn’t enough power available and it collapsed with a shudder. John really hoped the city wasn’t getting pelted with debris.

John readjusted to being aware of the whole system now that the shield didn’t need all his concentration and realised it felt different. Still dizzy, but different. Then he felt the wraith infection receding, slowly, reluctantly, but receding all the same. Something was killing it off, something from near the infirmary and John felt a wave of relief because whatever Carson and Radek had been working on had worked. And he was damn glad it had, because otherwise Todd might just have kept control long enough for the hiveship to have hit.

John reached for lifesigns. If he could just expand it to the ocean then he could look for survivors, Todd was a priority, but he hadn’t been the only one on that ship. Lifesigns didn’t respond. Of course, that would be because of John’s previous stupid plan. John could have kicked himself for forgetting something like that, but wow, he had a headache and it might just be a good time to disconnect.

John sat up and just about pitched to the side. God, that was disorientating. As if it hadn’t been bad enough being jerked out of the hiveship’s system it was downright weird disconnecting from the Atlantis while it was changing back to normal.

O’Neill, Ronon and various marines were staring down at him and John felt like some kind of scientific specimen.

‘Well?’ asked O’Neill, in that impatient voice that suggested John should know what he was talking about.

John blinked at him and concentrated at not swaying it the chair. He couldn’t be talking about the averted hiveship disaster because, hello, if had gone badly they’d all be dead.

‘Do we have control back or not?’ snapped O’Neill, and okay, maybe John could grant that that would be an obvious question.

‘Uh, yeah, sort of,’ John replied, trying to get his thoughts together. He was never, ever, connected to a system while it was going through extreme changes again. Or connecting to a hiveship, that thing had given him the headache of the century.

‘Sort of?’ O’Neill wasn’t amused and John could relate to that.

‘We’re getting control back, slowly, but whatever Carson did, it’s working.’

Some of the tension in the room evaporated and John looked up at Ronon.

Ronon shrugged. ‘Carson had to use it early, he wasn’t sure if it was ready.’

John mentally finished the implied end to that sentence. He couldn’t wait because of the kamikaze hiveship, so maybe the timing hadn’t been such a coincidence after all.

‘I’m taking over,’ said O’Neill in a tone that brokered no argument, so John got out the chair. It wasn’t like he was able to concentrate until the headache let up a bit.

John scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. ‘I don’t have to go back to the isolation room, do I?’

‘Nah,’ said O’Neill. ‘Get yourself up to the control room, it’ll give Woolsey a fright.’

John wasn’t going to say no to that, because it would be good to actually have a clue how the fighting was going. The hive members would be unsettled, but John figured that would make them fight harder, not less. Even if Todd had been killed in the crash, which John was not considering a given, the remnant of his influence would still be there, they’d keep fighting for the same cause.

Ronon followed him as John sprinted for the nearest transporter, and slipped inside as John pressed the display for the control room.

Despite what he’d said, O’Neill must have radioed Woolsey because Woolsey wasn’t surprised to see John and Ronon, just disapproving. And yeah, John appreciated that he really need to have a shower and change, but he’d been a bit busy.

Woolsey handed John a radio. ‘We’re still trying to track them all down, but the situations improving.’

John adjusted his radio. ‘Did you get Mehra?’

Woolsey grimaced, but nodded. ‘Not without difficulty, but we’ve secured her and we have a medical team on its way to sedate her. The control crystal that was removed from the lifesigns system is on its way to be reinstalled.’

John pulled a face, ‘that was removed’ was Woolsey’s way of being indirectly accusing. And he really needed to go get Rodney, because there was no way he was leaving him there one minute longer and he didn’t want to explain that…

‘Sir!’ yelled Chuck from across the room. ‘We’ve got lifesigns back and, um…’

‘Yes?’ asked Woolsey.

‘There’s someone in your quarters.’

So much for that. Woolsey was looking stunned and very confused and just really not at all happy.

John took a deep breath. ‘That would be Rodney.’

All eyes turned to him and John had so been hoping to avoid some of these awkward moments.

‘What?’ Woolsey spluttered. ‘Why would Dr McKay be in my quarters? By all reports he disappeared several hours ago.’

‘He didn’t ‘disappear’, I… removed him from the fight,’ said John and activated his radio because this really couldn’t wait. ‘Carson, I need you to take a medical team to Woolsey’s quarters, you’ll find Rodney, uh, you’ll find Rodney in the wardrobe, he’s in need of medical attention.’

‘My _wardrobe_.’ Woolsey sounded indignant and John found himself on the defensive.

‘I was _hiding_ him,’ John snapped. ‘If you’d rather he’d handed the city over to Todd?’

Woolsey might have replied, but John didn’t bother to listen. They had a city to clean up, he needed a damage report and he needed an estimate of how many hive members they still needed to round up now that lifesigns was operational. He also needed someone to give him data on who had survived the hiveship’s crash.

What he really _didn’t_ need was to be thinking about what came next. He remembered Carson’s cure all too well, and now he was going to have to watch the others going through it. He was going to have to watch _Rodney_ suffer through it, and he wasn’t sure he could face that.


	6. Chapter 6

They couldn’t find Todd. John had made it a personal project to oversee the rescue of all survivors from the hiveship, but Todd hadn’t been one of them. It was also simply impossible to locate all the bodies from the crash, which meant there was no way to confirm if Todd had died in the crash. John’s first thought had been that Todd had escaped on the cruiser, except then he’d found out that while Caldwell hadn’t been able to get past the hiveship’s shields, he’d managed to shoot down the cruiser.

The uncertainty was grinding on John’s nerves. He wanted Todd to have died on impact, but instinct told him that Todd wouldn’t go down that easily.

There was one really obvious way to find out and John knew O’Neill was acting on it. Each and every one of the hive members were connected to Todd’s mind, so they would know whether he’d survived. Except they weren’t talking. In fact, most of them weren’t saying anything at all, which was a little creepy, but John knew that most were drones and wouldn’t have said much anyway.

John had suggested they went ahead with Carson’s cure, that way they’d all be free from the state of mind Todd had imposed on them. O’Neill had agreed with him and they were about to administer the cure, to all of the hive members that captured, even the drones. John had warned Carson they’d be essentially brain dead, but he understood that Carson had to try.

John knew he should be there. He should be there for support because he knew what it was like, but the idea of watching them all suffer through it… John shuddered.

John cast a quick glance towards Woolsey’s office, where Woolsey was locked in an argument with Caldwell. The argument had quickly become heated and involved Caldwell jabbing a finger towards John at regular intervals.

It was, John decided, time to leave the control room and clean himself up a bit.

Then he’d have to go to the infirmary. If nothing else, he owed it to Rodney.

Rodney was also, according to Carson, fine. He hadn’t woken up yet, but the bullet wounds were almost completely healed and at that news John had felt a weight drop off his shoulders.

His quarters were a welcome sight after way too long in the hive and then isolation room. His reflection in his bathroom mirror was not such a welcome sight and John turned away sharply. First things first, he was going to have a shower.

John took off the too-big boots and then stripped off the bloody infirmary scrubs, resolving to throw them away. They were well beyond repair.

The hot water felt good, but it felt different on his spine so John washed quickly and stepped out.

John turned his back on the mirror and then took a deep breath. This was as far as Carson’s cure could go, it was about time he faced the facts; John turned around.

He looked… different. Or not so different. With the bluish wraith skin John could see similarities between how he’d looked when he was infected with the retrovirus. He could see the wraith skin on his sides, creeping around so some wound its way across his chest and spread up his neck.

John twisted around and examined his back. His spine was pretty damn awful, but he’d known that, it was just unimaginably more disturbing seeing it on his own spine than it had been on Lieutenant Reed. And he’d been pretty disturbed. Most of his back was wraith now. He straightened up again and looked into his reflection’s eyes.

John figured he could cover up the skin on his neck and face, but the eyes were going to be a problem.

John huffed out a sigh a dropped his gaze. Who the hell did he think he was kidding? After what Todd had done to him, after what he’d done to the city, it didn’t matter if he could cover up enough to appear normal because the IOA was going to lock him up in a secure facility on Earth. He’d have to leave his home, his family and he’d never be able to fly again and, hell, John figured he probably deserved it.

First, he’d betrayed his city and his people, and then he’d betrayed the hive. Which shouldn’t matter to him, he _knew_ it shouldn’t, but the guilt was still there. It might have all been false, forced, and his personality a slave to Todd, but he’d been _part_ of it.

Scrubbing a hand over his chin, John reached for his razer. He really needed to shave and he was absolutely not just putting off going to the infirmary.

Shaving turned out to be a nightmare. John kept catching flashing of yellow from his reflection’s eyes and instinctually flinching away. But he could do this. It was just shaving, no problem. Only he’d had more than enough of those damn yellow eyes with the slitted pupil and he wasn’t just angry about it, he was _furious_.

John lowered his fist. Punching out the mirror wouldn’t help anything; it would just leave him with a hell of a mess to clean up. Instead, he reached up and took the mirror off the wall and stored it under his bed.

He could shave without a mirror.

By the time John got to the infirmary, Carson had got the few hive members they’d successfully caught all in separate isolation rooms ready to start the cure.

John licked his lips and approached Carson. ‘Hey, doc.’

‘Ah, John, there you are,’ Carson turned around. ‘I thought you might want to be here, lad. Rodney is awake and he’s been asking for you.’ Carson paused and then backtracked. ‘Well he’s been asking _about_ you, but I’m sure he wants to see you.’

There was something in Carson’s sympathetic look that was different from his usual doctor expression and at first John just figured it was due to his new wraith look. Then it hit him. He’d outed himself and Rodney in front of pretty much everyone and now Carson was treating him like Rodney’s partner.

John focused his gaze somewhere past Carson and wondered whether he still had a relationship with Rodney. He wasn’t even sure he still had a friendship to salvage. He’d _shot_ him, so Rodney probably didn’t even want to be in the same room as John. By ‘asking after’ John assumed Rodney must be following up on his idea that John had brain damage, rather than actually wanting to see him.

‘Where is he?’ John asked, and if his voice sounded a bit rough, well, that could just be down to his new wraith DNA.

Carson gave a small smile. ‘Second room to the left. We’ll be starting his treatment in a few minutes, but I’m sure I don’t have to remind you not to touch him.’

Carson waved his hand as a reference to the seeding process. Yeah. Like John had forgotten. Clearly Carson had learnt enough from John that he was certain it was only through touch, otherwise John knew he’d be in a hazmat suit.

‘Sure, no problem.’ John turned away from Carson and slowly approached Rodney’s room, feeling a bit like a man on death row. This was probably not fair on Rodney. No, this was definitely not fair on Rodney, after all he’d done, but how could he leave him?

John pushed through the door and stopped just inside.

Rodney was restrained and obviously he had to be restrained but John still hated it. It was just _wrong_. Rodney was also staring at him.

‘Hi,’ said John, dropped his gaze to his feet.

‘Oh God,’ said Rodney. ‘They’re going to do the same thing to me. I’m going to end up like you.’

Ouch, damn it.

‘Jesus, Rodney, I’m not brain damaged,’ said John, more forcefully than strictly necessary.

Rodney narrowed his eyes doubtfully. ‘Fine. Sure you aren’t. But even if I choose to believe that I’m not going to lose most my brain cells, I’ll lose… I’ll lose _everything_. This is better for me, you _know_ it’s better for me. And, and it was better for you too. Why can’t you remember that? Did they take your memories too? I _knew_ Carson was a witchdoctor, but you still look like you should and I thought that maybe I could convince you…’

This was _way_ more painful than John had imagined. He grabbed a chair from the corner because he really needed to sit down for this conversation.

‘It’s _not_ better,’ John insisted, trying not to get angry. Not at Rodney, but at _Todd_ , that bastard who’d done this to Rodney. ‘Being a goddamn _harem girl_ is not better. Having people invading your every thought is _not_ better. I get that you can understand people like this, I still get that, but it’s not worth it Rodney, it really isn’t. You’re a _slave._ ’

‘You were fine like this!’ Rodney snapped back, hurt in his eyes.

‘No,’ John fired back. ‘I wasn’t. I _thought_ I was, but I wasn’t fine like that.’

‘Well you’re not fine now! Go on, tell me you’re fine, perfectly happy!’

John hesitated, then ground out. ‘I _am_ fine.’

‘Of course you are. Always fine.’ Rodney looked him in the eye. ‘You were happy with the hive, now you’re not. Don’t do that to me too, you’re going to send me back to having no idea what people are thinking of me. You know I don’t want that, or you did, before Carson worked his voodoo.’

‘This is pointless,’ said John, and it was, it was utterly pointless. He understood Rodney’s point of view (because he’d _been there_ ) but he didn’t share it anymore and Rodney surely understood his position, because it was the same position he’d held before Todd had messed with his brain, but he couldn’t be persuaded to agree with it. In short, the situation was just as crappy as John had expected.

‘Yes, it is!’ said Rodney. ‘Because you’re _brain damaged_ and seem to think it’s a good idea to brain damage me too and I don’t even know why I’m surprised, because _you shot me_.’

John was cut off from answering as Carson bustled into the room with a whole med team, and equipment and John really hadn’t been expecting that.

‘I thought it was an injection!’ exclaimed Rodney, flinching away.

‘It is.’ John stood up. ‘Carson?’

‘O’Neill has decided that we should do the extraction first, that’s all,’ Carson soothed.

Damn. John cast a quick glance over his shoulder; Rodney wasn’t going to like this at all.

‘We learnt a fair bit from yours,’ Carson continued. ‘So I think I’ve found a level of local anaesthetic that will stop it healing up on me during the procedure.’

‘Extraction?’ asked Rodney, his voice rising. ‘What procedure?’

‘Relax Rodney,’ said Carson, very calmly. ‘It’s perfectly simple, we just need to remove the organ that lets you produce the wraith seed. All I have to do is-‘

‘You’re going to remove an organ!’ Rodney was getting alarmed now and John really wanted to help him. Rodney tried to jab a finger in John’s direction, but was handicapped by the restraints. ‘You didn’t do that to him!’

‘Yes they did,’ said John. ‘Just _after_ they did the other part.’

‘God, organ removal, no wonder you’re brain damaged!’

Carson spluttered a bit at that and John tried to ignore the nurses, who were pretending not to be there. Once Rodney got hold of a line, he didn't let it go easily. Like the last time... like the last time John had shot him, and who the hell shoots their best friend and lover _twice_?

‘It’s in your _arm_ , Rodney,’ John told him. ‘And I am _not_ brain damaged!’

It was really irritating John that Rodney kept insisting he was. It was even worse that John knew why Rodney kept saying it, he knew Rodney was convinced that John would never have shot him and was trying to justify it. He wondered how Rodney was going to react when he realised John wasn’t brain damaged, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

‘John?’ said Carson. ‘You’re going to have to leave, I can allow you back in shortly after, but I’m afraid you can’t stay here for the surgery.’

‘Right.’ John nodded, almost relieved.

He left the room and almost walked straight into a nurse. ‘Sorry.’

The nurse was already jumping back and scrambling for her radio. ‘I need security by isolation room two, one of the patients has escaped.’

John rolled his eyes. Great.

‘I’m not a patient, I’ve been cured,’ John said, trying to sound reassuring, but the nurse was still backing off. John had never seen her before so he assumed she must have arrived on the Daedalus while he was on the hive. ‘Look, seriously, I’m Colonel Sheppard, I got back a few days ago, Carson’s already treated me.’

A team of marines rushed around the corner, weapons raised. John was getting really tired of having his own people point guns at him.

‘Sergeant Franklin,’ said John, failing to keep the annoyance out of his tone. ‘It’s just me, I haven’t _escaped_ ; I was released.’

That was mostly true anyway. He’d escaped, sure, but no-one had seemed inclined to lock him up again.

‘Get down on the floor!’ barked Franklin.

‘No.’ John was definitely not doing this again; he tapped his radio on, sharply. ‘General O’Neill, please tell Sergeant Franklin that I’m _not a damn prisoner_.’

_‘Sergeant Franklin,’_ said O’Neill, over the radio. _‘Colonel Sheppard is no longer a prisoner. I repeat, Colonel Sheppard is no longer a prisoner, don’t try and lock him up again. That goes for everyone.’_

Franklin paled a bit and he and his team lowered their guns. ‘Sorry, sir.’

John pushed past him. ‘Don’t do it again, Sergeant.’

John sat down in one of the infirmary’s waiting rooms and wondered whether he should visit the other hive members. Except he was pretty certain it wouldn’t do any good. He knew from his own experience that they’d all fight it; they’d all say anything possible to even postpone the treatment and John couldn’t persuade them to do otherwise.

There was one thing he could do for them though.

Teyla was in the mess hall when John found her. It wasn’t exactly crowded, most people were still involved in the clean up, but there was just enough people to make the sudden silence after John enter the room noticeable. John chose to ignore the stares, and went straight over to Teyla, sitting in the chair opposite.

‘John.’ Teyla greeted him with a tired smile.

‘Hi.’ John scratched the back of his neck and wondered how to broach the subject. ‘Uh, look, I know it’s been a long day, but I’d like to ask a favour.’

Teyla raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Of course.’

John studied the table. ‘I don’t know if I thanked you properly, for the help you gave me when Carson was curing me.’

‘It was the least I could do for you,’ Teyla said softly.

‘Yeah, uh, well, thanks. But, I wanted to tell you that it really did help and I was hoping you’d be able to help the others, too,’ John finished. ‘I’d do it myself but Carson’s treatment seems to have wiped out that particular side effect of the wraith DNA.’

‘I believe that was the point of it.’ Teyla studied him. ‘Of course I will help them, but General O’Neill has made it clear that the treatments are to be administered without delay. I will not be able to help them all.’

‘Okay.’ John thought about that, it didn’t mean Teyla couldn’t help them, but she was right; she could hardly be in several places at once. ‘Rodney and Mehra will be going through that stage later than the others since they’ve got to have the operation. So, uh, if you could help Stackhouse and Reed first?’

There were others who would have benefited from Teyla’s help, but not many. Todd had still been experimenting with the procedure, and many of those who hadn’t died from the early attempts had become drones regardless of Todd’s intention. Others had died on the hiveship and the cruiser, John didn’t want to analyse how many. The cost from Todd’s experimentation with Michael’s research was already too high.

Teyla nodded and rose from the table. ‘I will go and ask Carson when they will be in need of me.’

John got up from the table too, but went to get himself some food; it had been way too long since he’d had the soup. As soon as he started moving, the room went quiet again and people stared at him when they thought he couldn’t see them, only to avert their gaze if he glanced towards them. John gritted his teeth, and felt their eyes on him all the way across the mess hall, where he snatched up a sandwich and left quickly.

He headed back to the infirmary waiting room because even if Rodney didn’t want him there, he couldn’t be anywhere else.

O’Neill interrupted John’s wait, by strolling casually into the room. ‘I knew I’d find you here.’

‘Great,’ said John. ‘Did you just win a bet, or did you actually want me for something?’

Really, John knew exactly what O’Neill wanted. This conversation had been coming from the moment the battle with Todd finished, and to say he was apprehensive was a hell of an understatement.

‘Don’t play stupid with me, Sheppard,’ said O’Neill. ‘I’ve got your city to clean up and they still expect me to do long distance phone calls with the IOA. Bureaucrats; can’t even get away from them in another galaxy.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed John. ‘It’s a constant problem, but we’re working on it.’

O’Neill snorted. ‘We’re having a conversation about your current situation. I’m sure you can imagine what position they’re going to take, regardless of what Woolsey recommends.’

John was pretty certain the IOA were collectively and permanently pissed off that Woolsey hadn’t followed out all their rules to the letter, but, yes, he was fairly certain what position the overcautious IOA would take. Although, John wasn’t sure how anyone would be able to argue _against_ locking him up in a secure facility in Earth. Betraying your people was above and beyond what was needed for a court marshal and once John had lost his post they’d ship him back to Earth, where he wouldn’t be allowed to leave SGC facilities.

Yet, John still had a favour to ask from O’Neill and anyone else who was willing to vouch for him. He needed them to convince the IOA that he’d been fully under Todd’s command, he needed them to know that because otherwise it wouldn’t just be him who was confined to a secure facility; it would be Rodney and Mehra and everyone else who’d been rescued from Todd.

So John said to O’Neill; ‘Yes, sir, about that. There are protocols for alien control and I’d like to apply them to this situation.’

O’Neill eyed him and John detected some surprise in his expression. ‘Yes. That would be a given.’

‘I understand that you’ll have had some experience fighting that case. You know, with the Gou’ald, I can point you to some of our cases as well, if you’re willing to argue for us.’

‘The others who are still recovering will be assessed separately, Sheppard,’ O’Neill told him. ‘Since you’re already been cured they’ve just decided to assess you first along with the sit rep for the city. There is no _us_ here, this one is about you.’

‘Yeah, because I’m sure what they decide for me will set no precedents at all,’ said John, rolling his eyes. ‘When do they want to interview me?’

‘They don’t.’

‘ _What?_ ’ asked John, confused. The IOA loved to stick to their protocols and when assessing someone’s fitness for a position, it was damn obviously to interview the person being assessed.

‘You’re military, so they’ve agreed that the military will assess your fitness and make a recommendation and they will take that recommendation into consideration.’ O’Neill looked almost smug so John was immediately suspicious.

‘Okay, then. When am I being interviewed?’

‘Right now,’ said O’Neill and John realised he’d been expecting that answer. Maybe he was finally getting used to O’Neill’s less than conventional way of approaching things.

‘I think I’m supposed to ask the somewhat predictable questions; ‘Were you yourself at the time?’ We’ve covered that. And of course, ‘Do you think you could be controlled in this way again?’ A useless question given that, as you pointed out, we’ve had enough incidents to actually have a controlled by aliens protocol. ‘Do you regret what you did?’ I don’t think we need to go through that one. There were others, but none I can’t answer for myself. Also, I’m supposed to assess whether you’re still under alien control. Done that.’

John just nodded.

O’Neill looked at his watch. ‘I’m short of the required ten minutes, but what they don’t know won’t hurt them.’

‘True,’ said John, trying to figure out exactly what O’Neill was going to argue for him. If he tried to keep John in Atlantis, firstly, John wasn’t even sure he deserved that, and secondly, he had a feeling the IOA would strongly object. But if O’Neill just argued for alien control… then John thought the IOA might listen to him, and give Rodney a fighting chance of getting a good result. John had no idea how to get that through to O’Neill.

‘Oh, and Sheppard?’ O’Neill called over his shoulder as he headed for the door. ‘They may still want an interview with you further on in the process. If they do; try not to shoot yourself in the foot.’


	7. Chapter 7

John was loitering outside Rodney’s isolation room. Rodney had just been given the second dose of treatment, which meant the other hive members would feel distant and Rodney would soon lose contact with them altogether. Mehra had already reached that stage and Teyla was helping her through it.

John knew Rodney would be struggling with the treatment, probably even panicking a bit. John scrubbed a hand over his face. He should go in. He should try and help Rodney through it until Teyla arrived. But he knew what would happen; he’d have the same conversation with Rodney again. Rodney would try to convince him he didn’t need, didn’t _want_ , the treatment and John knew he couldn’t say anything to change Rodney’s mind. Hell, he’d tried everything to convince Carson and Teyla not to give _him_ the treatment.

He could go in and have the conversation. Or he could loiter outside and worry.

As word had got around, John found he was still getting stares from the infirmary staff, some still hostile, but many sympathetic. Which, sure, was better than hostile, but sympathetic stares were still stares and John was getting tired of it. Actually, he was getting tired of looking like a _wraith_ , but he figured he’d just have to suck it up because there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

John leaned against the wall and sighed. If he went in, Rodney would be hostile or pleading. God, John didn’t want to have to deal with Rodney pleading with him.

He looked up as he heard footsteps approaching.

‘Sir!’

It was Sergeant Miles, a friend of Lieutenant Reed. John returned his salute, a little bit surprised.

‘Yes, Sergeant?’

‘I was hoping for an update on Lieutenant Reed’s situation, sir,’ said Miles, very formally.

‘Have you spoken to the infirmary staff?’ asked John, because surely Carson would be a better person for Miles to be addressing.

Miles shifted nervously. ‘I meant about his position in the city, sir. I’m willing to vouch for his loyalty.’

Oh. John found himself a bit taken aback. He wasn’t sure he was exactly qualified to answer that question either; John didn’t know his own position. ‘We’re not there yet, Sergeant. He’ll need to finish the treatment before the IOA and the SGC evaluate him, but I _will_ speak to General O’Neill for you.’

The man’s face lit up. ‘Thank you, sir. It’s good to have you back.’

Sergeant Miles saluted again and John returned it, feeling almost… welcome. He shook his head as Miles continued down the corridor towards Lieutenant Reid’s isolation room; not once had Miles seemed put out by his appearance.

John glanced back at Rodney’s door and pulled a face. He needed to go in and face Rodney. Even if it meant having that conversation again.

Rodney’s room looked exactly the same as last time. Except for the part where Rodney was pulling on the restraints. He stopped as soon as he saw John.

John thought he’d try to cover his escape attempt by babbling, by complaining about everything and nothing or by being accusing. Instead, Rodney said nothing, he just looked past John at the wall, and John was seriously spooked.

‘Rodney?’

No reply. Shit. John tried to figure out what he was missing here. He _knew_ Rodney, he’d thought he’d known exactly what Rodney would do and he’d braced himself for it. But this… this was not what he’d been expecting and it made him feel off balance.

John sat down cautiously and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do. He could tell Rodney that he’d be over the worst of it soon, except Rodney was just about to go through the worst of it. Besides, Rodney didn’t want to be ‘over it’, Rodney wanted to keep the hive. John sighed and said nothing.

It took a while, but eventually it was Rodney who broke the silence. And it hit John like a hammer.

‘They’re already gone,’ Rodney said, practically tonelessly. ‘It’s only a few of the drones left.’

John just stared at him. No, Rodney wasn’t that far through the treatment, Teyla was supposed to help him through that part, right after she’d helped… Crap. John closed his eyes. Right after she’d helped Mehra through it, when she’d already helped Reed and Stackhouse. In fact, everyone who still had personality left had gone through that stage of the treatment. Everyone except Rodney.

Rodney had yet to lose the hive but, like he’d said, all he had left were the drones.

‘Fuck,’ said John, angry at himself. How could he have left Rodney alone in the hive? It had been bad enough knowing he had to watch Rodney lose the hive, but Rodney had already lost most of it, having each person slowly disappear. ‘ _Fuck._ I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry?’ snapped Rodney, bitterly. ‘This is what you _want_. The hive disappearing. Even the drones are distant now; I’ll bet that makes you _happy_. You could have stopped them from doing this, but you didn’t want to.’

Rodney was lashing out, because he was angry, afraid and felt alone. John knew that, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear.

‘This,’ John indicated to Rodney, retrained on the infirmary bed. ‘Is _not_ what I want. I want you to be yourself again.’

‘Oh please,’ said Rodney. ‘I’m myself now, and you know that. If you want to help me bring the others back into the hive, bring _yourself_ back into the hive. Carson can fix what he’s done to you he must be able to.’

‘Damn it, Rodney,’ John huffed out. ‘ _You_ know I don’t want to part of the hive.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Rodney. ‘And we’re going around in circles. This would be a lot simpler if you would just _agree with me_. Bring Carson in here again and we can convince him that being part of a hive is better.’

‘ _No_ , Rodney,’ said John, every word an effort, because this, _this_ was exactly what he’d tried to brace himself for.

‘I felt you go through this,’ whimpered Rodney, his eyes pleading. ‘I don’t want to go through this. I don’t want to lose the rest of it. Please, John.’

‘I’m sorry,’ John said quietly, and it was painful, almost too painful because he knew _exactly_ how Rodney was feeling, remembered fighting it. ‘I’m sorry Rodney, but I can’t leave you like this. We can’t leave you like this.’

John had to look away. Nothing he could say could help. Rodney knew it all, but would still fight it every step of the way.

‘John?’ said Teyla from the doorway. ‘Would you like me to wait outside a few minutes?’

John stood up and wiped his eyes as subtly as possible; not that he had any delusions that Teyla wouldn’t have noticed.

‘No,’ he said; if it was time for Teyla to help Rodney through the next stage, then John knew he couldn’t delay it for personal reasons. That wouldn’t be fair for Rodney. ‘No, I’ll go.’

He could stay. John knew he could stay and Teyla wouldn’t mind, but he just couldn’t make himself watch Rodney suffer any more.

John went back to his quarters and simply slept. It did feel good to be home, John had been missing the city on the hive, if not his old place in it.

Sleep came, but it wasn’t restful. As much as he hated to admit it, John was still adjusting to the absence of the hive, the presence of other minds that he’d found calming. Now, when they invaded his sleep, John found them intrusive and the dreams jerked him awake.

A knock at the door woke him after a few hours of fitful sleep.

John groaned softly to himself and rolled out of bed.

It was General O’Neill and John tried to gather some sort of composure. He was apprehensive, unsure of exactly what he wanted the result to be, if in fact the IOA had given a result. Maybe they would still be dithering.

‘Well,’ said O’Neill. ‘The IOA and Landry have both decided that you can’t be held accountable for your actions, so no official punishment there. First time I’ve ever seen them actually agree, although I don’t think the _entire_ IOA was convinced.’

‘So what,’ said John, incredulous; even though that was a _good_ result, really. But seriously… ‘I can be court martialled for trying to rescue people but not for trying to hand my own people over to the enemy?’

‘Results over methods, _Lieutenant Colonel_ ,’ replied O’Neill, with irony.

Ouch. John winced, then considered; Lieutenant Colonel?

‘Not even a discharge?’ asked John, getting irritated.

‘Nope. Landry’s not kicking you out, even if you have pissed him off in the past. They’re also considering your command, pending psych evaluation, of course.’

‘Oh, of course,’ said John, more than a little sarcastically.

O’Neill gave him a look. ‘Don’t push it, Sheppard. The IOA do love their protocol, and they’re not entirely happy leaving you here, and definitely aren’t impressed with the idea of you as military commander.’

John bit back another sarcastic reply. _He_ wasn’t sure about staying military commander. How would his men feel about a commander who’d betrayed them? He just said, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘They’ll drag this out, they wanted to send you back to Earth for the psych eval.’

John grimaced. ‘That’s not happening.’

He couldn’t set a precedent like that. Chances were, the IOA would take them all back to Earth for ‘psych evaluation’ and none of them would be allowed back.

O’Neill pointed at him. ‘Exactly. I talked them around it, since you’ve got the new base psychologist incoming on the Apollo, four or five days out now, chosen, I might add, by them. _And_ you’ll face probation if you pass the evaluation.’

‘No surprises there.’ John knew the IOA were cautious way past a fault, what O’Neill was describing was less than he’d expected. No doubt they’d want some way to disguise his appearance as well, although that would be a reasonable precaution; walking around off world in Pegasus looking like a wraith was asking for trouble.

‘Anyway,’ continued O’Neill. ‘Main crisis is over, so I’m heading back on the Daedalus. Try to keep the city safe, I’d hate to explain to Daniel that I left and it got destroyed.’

John rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, sir.’

There didn’t seem any point in him trying to get to sleep again, so John headed off towards the infirmary. Rodney would have been through the major part of the treatment, which meant he’d be himself again.

Despite everything, John had no idea how Rodney would respond to him.

Rodney was no longer restrained, and was sitting up in the bed typing on a laptop. John closed the door, feeling nervous. Would Rodney even want to talk to him now the hive was gone? He’d been clinging to the idea that there had to be something seriously wrong with John after John had shot him and John understood that, but now Rodney knew there wasn’t…

Rodney looked up and set his mouth in a thin line.

‘Well. This is humiliating,’ said Rodney, and went back to his typing, ignoring John completely.

John stood there, feeling useless. Humiliating for who? And why? What could he say to make Rodney feel more comfortable? Nothing, probably. If Rodney didn’t forgive him, then John would have to accept that.

When after ten minutes he still couldn’t find a single thing to say, and Rodney hadn’t so much as acknowledged him again, John turned and left again.

John walked down the corridors without really noticing anything. He’d been right. Rodney didn’t want to talk to him and John found himself stunned by it. He’d told himself that Rodney might not want anything to do with him anymore, but until then he hadn’t really believed it.

John rounded a corner and walked straight into Lorne. Literally.

‘I was just looking for you, sir,’ said Lorne, recovering quickly.

Lorne was now standing uncomfortably at attention and John just raised an eyebrow at him, because Lorne knew that John never really stuck to military protocol.

‘Sir, about earlier.’ Lorne sounded even unhappier than he looked so John figured he was talking about when Lorne had shot at him. ‘I’m s-‘

‘Major,’ John interrupted, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice. Lorne had been apologising to John every step of the way and John really needed to cut off whatever guilt Lorne was feeling because there were times when ‘following orders’ was the reasonable thing to do. ‘If you apologise one more time, I will _find_ something to court martial you with.’

‘Yes sir.’ Lorne said, sounding amused and, unless John was imagining it, relieved.

‘Good,’ John said, but Lorne didn’t leave so he added, ‘Was there something else, Major?’

‘I heard about the IOA’s decision,’ said Lorne. ‘It’s good to have you back, sir.’

‘You’re just hoping I’ll take over some of the paperwork again,’ replied John, less taken aback since he’d already heard that from Sergeant Miles. It _was_ strange that Lorne was acting like John had already been confirmed as the military commander, but John didn’t feel like contradicting everyone who made that assumption.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Lorne, then, under his breath. ‘ _Some_ of the paperwork.’

John was forced to do a double take, but Lorne was already making off down the corridor so John rolled his eyes, the exchange feeling weirdly normal. ‘I heard that, Major!’

Heading to his quarters again felt like a good move, because somehow John’s afternoon had merged into night, and his earlier nap hadn’t done much to ease his tiredness.

Life, it seemed, was conspiring against a good night’s sleep because John had barely taken a step before he heard someone calling out to him.

‘Ah! Colonel! Colonel, there you are.’

John turned around again to face Radek, who was practically beaming.

John eyed him warily. ‘Hi, Radek.’

‘Contact lenses!’ announced Radek, proudly.

‘Great,’ agreed John, frowning at Radek’s glasses. ‘Good for you.’

Radek waved that away. ‘No, no. _Coloured_ contact lens. I understand that the skin on your neck can be covered efficiently, jacket or make-up will do that. Ah, but the eyes are more difficult. You will have to make sure you can wear them of course, but I believe contact lenses are the key.’

‘Make-up?’ asked John, trying to gather his thoughts.

‘I am certain you could borrow some until the next supply trip,’ said Radek, dismissively. ‘Contact lens we shall need to order in specially, but it is doable.’

‘Seems like a lot of trouble for walking around the city,’ said John, doubtfully.

That seemed to take the wind out of Radek’s sails. ‘Not for around the city. Of course, they may be useful if for when our allies visit, but, no, _off world_.’

‘Oh,’ said John, feeling like he’d been pretty dense there. Once he’d thought about it though, coloured contact lenses might allow him to go off world without scaring every planets local population. Assuming the IOA would ever be comfortable with sending him off world. ‘That’s… actually a pretty good idea.’

Radek was beaming again, but not leaving so John thanked him and went to try and get his first good night’s sleep since he’d left the hive.

The next afternoon Woolsey called a meeting.

John didn’t want to go. He figured if he skipped it, he could simply argue that he wasn’t technically a senior staff member anymore. Woolsey liked technical details, so surely he couldn’t complain about that. Too much.

That plan might have worked. John liked to think it _would_ have worked, except Carson managed to intercept him in the mess hall when John was grabbing some coffee.

‘Colonel,’ said Carson, way too cheerfully, waving a cup of tea around dangerously. ‘I was just headed to the meeting, too.’

‘Excellent,’ said John, through gritted teeth.

Carson, who on occasion seemed to have an immunity to TMI, spent the trip to the meeting explaining to John exactly how fascinating the organs were that he’d removed from John, Rodney and Mehra.

By the time John arrived at the meeting he was almost pleased to be there. Almost. Except for the part where Rodney was already seated and John couldn’t even make eye contact with him. Ronon, Teyla, Radek and Lorne were also already there.

Wincing, John sat down and eyed the large folder in front of Woolsey.

Woolsey was waiting for something and John was surprised when Mehra entered and sat down.

Woolsey nodded at her and kicked off the meeting with the details of how repairs to the city were going. John tried not to yawn. He knew all of it. It was his city, his home and he considered it his responsibility to stay updated with that kind of thing. John stared at the table to avoid the urge to look over to Rodney, like he normally would have done.

However, John did sit up and pay attention when Woolsey brought up the subject of Todd, of whom there was still no sign.

‘Now, Sergeant Mehra,’ said Woolsey. ‘I want you to run through your last contact with the wraith known as Todd.’

John sat up straighter in his chair. Of course. Somehow, he’d managed to forget that while Rodney was unconscious, Mehra would be able to tell them the exact point where she lost contact with Todd. Because if she’d lost contact when the hive crashed, she’d know whether Todd had still been on board, maybe even whether he survived.

Mehra assumed a blank stare. ‘As I told you earlier, we lost contact with Todd _before_ the hiveship began re-entry. He cut the connection himself, so I believe-‘

‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ said Woolsey, cutting her off. Mehra glowered, but somehow refrained from telling Woolsey exactly what she thought of that.

John leant back in his chair and grimaced. Todd had cut the connection so none of the hive members would later be able to recount where he’d gone, which meant he’d almost definitely escaped.

‘Drs McKay and Zelenka,’ Woolsey continued, ‘I also understand that we have gone over the city’s sensors and there was no indication of a ship escaping from the hive?’

‘We didn’t detect anything, no,’ said Radek, looking very uncertain.

‘That doesn’t mean there _wasn’t_ anything,’ Rodney cut in. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed the city wasn’t quite firing on all cylinders.’

‘So,’ said Woolsey, ignoring Rodney’s remark. ‘As there has been absolutely no indication that Todd survived the hiveship crash, I have had to conclude that he is probably dead and thus we should dedicate no more resources into locating him.’

‘Probably?!’ John shot back, barely able to process what he was hearing. ‘This is _exactly_ what you did with Michael!’

Rodney gestured in John’s general direction, but didn’t look at him. ‘That’s a… that’s a point.’

‘I believe we should continue searching for him. Both on this planet and off world.’ Teyla stared determinedly at Woolsey.

John was pleased for her backup, but not surprised. Out of all of them, Teyla had come off worse from Woolsey’s assumptions about Michael.

‘Oh please,’ said Rodney. ‘He’s not on our planet anymore. We’ve swept the immediate area for life signs so many times even my most paranoid minions are bored, and we’ve had puddle jumpers patrolling most the planet by now.’ John studied the pattern on the table, because apparently he and Teyla were more paranoid then any of Rodney’s minions and convincing Woolsey of anything took a team effort. Rodney seemed to realise this, several sentences too late. ‘Oh, uh, that’s not that I don’t think we should look for him. He probably made off in a dart.’

‘Exactly,’ said Woolsey. ‘If there’s any chance he is alive, which I doubt, he could be anywhere by now. Which leaves us with, as the Colonel kindly pointed out, the same problem I explained to you with Michael. Todd has lost his hiveship and therefore his ability to go after our people, and I can’t authorize a never ending mission to capture a single individual who may or may not even be alive.’

John didn’t agree with that. Todd would always be a threat, hiveship or no hiveship. There was a slight clatter as Ronon threw a small object onto the table. By the time it had skidded to a stop in front of Woolsey, John had managed to recognise it as a digital recorder.

‘What’s this?’ asked Woolsey, picking it up cautiously.

‘My mission report,’ said Ronon. ‘From when you let Michael go.’

Woolsey’s lips twitched slightly, in a movement John couldn’t identify as a slight smile or a grimace. ‘I’ve heard it.’

‘Thought you must need reminding.’ Ronon fixed Woolsey with his intimidating stare.

Woolsey pursed his lips and failed to hold Ronon’s gaze. ‘Any off world team should keep their eyes and ears open for news, but I cannot authorize an indefinite mission.’

John was getting a strong sense of déjà vu, but he said nothing. He was sure Todd had survived, but going after him… Todd would be lying low, making him almost impossible to find and he’d hardly be in contact with their allies. In fact, previously, Todd himself had been their go to contact in this kind of situation. John wanted nothing better than to go and kill the bastard, but he had no idea where to start.

Woolsey opened another file and frowned to himself while Ronon continued to glower.

‘Hmm,’ said Woolsey and closed that file before scanning through the next. ‘I see. I’ll have to end the meeting here, since at the moment there is still content that is not supposed to be discussed with, ah, some of those present.’

John clenched his jaw and didn’t comment. He knew he should’ve skipped the meeting.

Rodney, however, was having none of it. ‘Excuse me? We’ve been medically cleared! So we haven’t been officially allowed to keep our positions yet, we’ve still all got security clearance or, hello, none of us would be here!’

‘Aye,’ said Carson. ‘I specifically stated in my medical report that they’re all cleared of any wraith mental influence.’

Woolsey, to his credit, did look regretful. ‘I’m aware of that, but at this point, it’s not up to me.’

Woolsey then gathered up his files, making it very obvious the meeting was over. Mehra got up and stalked out of the room, Ronon wasn’t far behind.

John got up himself and started to follow the others out, but, to his surprise, Rodney called him back.

‘Colonel,’ Rodney said, with a determined expression on his face. ‘A word?’

John refused to react to the formality and kept his own response light, feeling as though he was walking on eggshells. ‘Yeah, sure.’

‘I’m going to keep this short and, uh, sweet,’ Rodney made the last word a question. Then he lifted his chin. ‘I want to leave the team.’

John barely stopped himself from stepping backwards. ‘No.’

‘You can’t say no!’ snapped Rodney, agitated. ‘It’s a voluntary position!’

‘At the moment,’ said John, struggling to keep his voice even. ‘There is no team. Neither of us officially have a position, so there is no team for you to quit. When, _if_ , there is a team, then you can think about resigning from it. Not before.’

‘I can resign in advance! Or refuse to put my name down,’ argued Rodney.

‘No,’ said John, aware he sounded angry. ‘No, you can’t. That’s final.’

‘I can do whatever I want with a voluntary position!’ Rodney also seemed to be getting angry but John didn’t want to consider that Rodney didn’t even want to work with him anymore.

‘I said that’s _final_ ,’ snapped John, his voice low and dangerous. Then he turned on his heel and left Rodney standing alone in the conference room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should be the final one. I'm hoping to post it a bit earlier than usual, so it lands on the 10th anniversary of SGA.


	8. Chapter 8

John wanted to know _why_ Rodney wanted to leave the team. It could be that Rodney really didn’t want to be around him anymore, John knew that. But there were others reasons too. It was possible that Rodney didn’t feel safe enough to go off world anymore, either because he was afraid of something similar happening again, or because he didn’t want to risk being mistaken for a wraith and executed. Or it could be because Rodney didn’t think _John_ wanted him around anymore.

He couldn’t do much about the first three options. If that was why Rodney no longer wanted to be on John’s team then John wasn’t sure he had the right to keep saying no. If it was the last option… Well if it was the last option John needed to do something about that.

Because, okay, Rodney’s new wraith skin was also pretty creepy but he was still _Rodney._ Even if Rodney was angry at him (or worse, afraid of him), John still wanted to attempt to salvage their friendship.

Which was why he had collected two lunches before heading towards the labs.

John paused at the end of the corridor, the two lots of wrapped sandwiches and two brownies clutched in his hands. He could just see Rodney, hunched over his laptop in his lap, not even muttering to himself. John should go in, give him the lunch as a sort of peace offering, an attempt to reboot the friendship if nothing else. Instead he stayed there, watching, rooted to the spot.

A young woman approached from the other direction and entered Rodney’s lab, John didn’t know her. She stood there, as indecisive as John. She was close enough that Rodney must have known she was there, but he didn’t acknowledge her.

She cleared her throat softly and Rodney’s face screwed up in annoyance. He turned to face her and John chickened out and backed off.

Walked off and kept walking, purposefully, like he had somewhere to be. Unfortunately, he didn’t, and if he kept walking around in circles he’d stroll past someone twice, still holding the two lunches.

Also, he was heading back to Rodney’s lab. John turned abruptly and kept walking to nowhere in particular like a man with a mission. Returning one lot of wrapped sandwiches and brownie to the mess hall was not really an option.

He wound up at Teyla’s quarters. Paused and then knocked, because he had two lunches and he had to do _something_ with the spare one.

The doors pulled open and Teyla stood there.

‘John,’ she greeted, with a smile. Then she took in the lunches and raised an eyebrow in question.

‘I, uh, have extra,’ John explained feebly. ‘Do you want one?’

‘That would be very welcome.’ Teyla accepted the lunch but her expression remained questioning.

John fled.

He got all the way back to his own quarters, had devoured his sandwiches and was staring blankly at the brownie before he realised how weird Teyla would have found that. John didn’t particularly feel like heading back and explaining, so he started on his brownie.

He really needed to actually talk to Rodney next time.

Mehra turned up at his door shortly after John finished his lunch. She was restless, pacing up and down.  
  


‘Hey, Mehra,’ said John tiredly.

Mehra paced angrily. ‘We’re just letting him go.’

John was prepared for this conversation. Mehra was never going to let Woolsey’s decision stand without a fight. ‘We don’t have a way to look for him. Look, _if_ the IOA listen to O’Neill and I actually get to stay here, then I’m going to make sure all the teams have specific orders to ask around. We hear _anything_ and, with Woolsey’s permission or not, I’m going after him.’

Mehra just shook her head. ‘Who would we hear anything from? He’d not going to be hanging out on human planets.’

‘No,’ agreed John. ‘But he’s still got to eat. He’s lost the hive and he’s lost the cruiser, so he’s either in a dart or a transport ship. There’s not a whole lot of wraith who cull with one ship.’

‘We can’t just hope we hear something,’ complained Mehra, adding belatedly, ‘sir.’

‘You give me another possible option and I’ll take it,’ said John. ‘As much as I hate to admit it, Woolsey’s right to some extent. We can’t chase after him without any leads.’

Mehra grumbled something to herself, but didn’t offer him any options.

‘Have the IOA reviewed you yet?’ asked John, as Woolsey was forced to keep him out of the loop on their status.

Mehra nodded and pulled a face. ‘Yeah. Yesterday, I’m to stay here for the time being. With psych eval and all that.’

‘Seems like their standard response, then.’ John was hopeful that the IOA was at least giving them a chance. It could have been worse. Much worse.

‘So…’ said Mehra, dragging the word out. ‘Have you spoken to Rodney?’

John held back a grimace. ‘Yes, actually, I have.’

‘Aaaaand?’ Mehra raised her eyebrows.

‘Y’know, _Sergeant,_ ’ said John, deflecting her question. ‘It’s generally frowned upon to pry into your commanding officers private life.’

Mehra snorted, clearly suggesting the hive had put them _way_ past the usual privacy barriers. ‘I thought you weren’t technically my commanding officer at the moment.’

John raised his own eyebrow back at her. ‘Okay. But if we are reappointed, you know it will be my job to assign your missions.’

Mehra sighed. ‘Right. Toe the line or get botanist babysitting duties. Got it.’

‘Good,’ said John, trying not to laugh at her expression. ‘Now beat it.’

‘Yessir.’ Mehra snapped off a salute sarcastic enough to rival some John had given his own commanding officers.

The next evening, John found himself walking towards Rodney’s lab with another peace offering; a slice of lemon meringue pie.

Oh shit. _Lemon_ meringue pie. He could hardly give Rodney lemon meringue pie. It took John a few seconds to realise he’d done it on purpose; he’d chosen something Rodney wouldn’t like so he wouldn’t have to make it all the way to the lab.

John scrubbed a hand over his face and felt ashamed. Taking the pie with him he wandered back to his quarters.

He sat on the bed and ate the pie slowly, wondering why the taste was such a novelty. Oh right. He usually ate with Rodney which meant citrus tended to be out of the question. John ate the rest of the pie mechanically, not really tasting it.

As far as John knew, Rodney hadn’t made any attempt to see him. John didn’t know how to interpret that. Rodney could have settled into repairing the city, or started work on projects that technically were still off limits to him. Rodney often had to be practically dragged from his lab when working on a difficult project. Or he could be specifically avoiding John.

John sighed. If only he knew what Rodney was _thinking_.

John breathed in sharply.

He was not going to think like that. He was seriously not going there.

Walking over to his mini fridge, John pulled out a six pack of beer, hesitated, then took out his emergency bottle of whiskey as well. He didn’t have anything to mix it with, but what the hell.

John opened the whiskey and took a drink straight from the bottle, before remembering the beer. He decided to have the beer first.

He was through all of the beer and half of the whiskey before he realised it wasn’t having the desired effect. He wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t even tipsy.

That wasn’t right. How the hell did that work? It had to be the iratus DNA. There must be something in the iratus DNA that prevented him from getting drunk.

John snatched up one of the empty beer bottles and hurled it at the wall, it shattered with a satisfactory explosion of glass. But it hit the wall exactly where he’d aimed. Oh yeah. Definitely no impaired coordination.

John picked up the next one, and it followed the first. Same damn result. Then the next, until John had worked his way through all six bottles. His floor was glittering with a carpet of glass.

He contemplated the whiskey bottle. The bottle was still half full, but it wasn’t like he was getting drunk anyway. John raised the bottle.

There was a soft and tentative knock at his door.

John froze.

A second knock came, equally cautious, but slightly louder.

John stared at the door like it might bite him, whiskey bottle still raised.

Quiet footsteps told him whoever it was had left.

Carefully, John lowered the bottle and walked over to the fridge, placing it back where he’d got it from.

That was weird. His feet hurt, why the hell would his feet hurt? John looked down. Oh, right, the glass.

John hobbled back to his bed and sat down and inspected the soles of his feet. No surprises really, they were bloody and imbedded with bits of glass. John sighed and began pulling out pieces of glass, one by one. He wondered if he should call Carson.

Then, as he removed the glass, the cuts began to heal. Well that solved that question anyway, no need to get Carson involved. He finished removing the glass. Glancing around the room, John grimaced and resolved to clean up the mess later.

He lay back on his bed, feet hanging off the end, and stared up at the ceiling.

In the morning, it took him several hours before John was able to find a sweeping brush in a supply closet. He earned a few stares carrying the thing back to his quarters but that was fine, at least they weren’t staring because of his wraith features.

John surveyed the mess of glass in his room and sighed. It was going to take a while.

It did take a while; John estimated it took over an hour to get rid of it all. As he was bending down to clear up the last of it, John caught sight of his mirror, stashed under the bed and rolled his eyes. There was irony if he’d ever seen it. Maybe he should’ve just broken the mirror along with the beer bottles.

The door chimed and John quickly ditched the glass in his bin before opening it.

Teyla entered his quarters with her usual grace. ‘You are going to teach me how to play golf,’ she said firmly.

John just stared at her.

She went over to the golf clubs anyway. ‘I believe these are what you use?’

John appreciated what she was doing, he really did, but… ‘Teyla, I’d never known you to make up excuses until I tried to teach you and Ronon golf.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Teyla smoothly. ‘I have now decided to learn.’

John was going to argue more, but Ronon appeared at the still open door.

‘Beat me too it,’ Ronon rumbled to Teyla.

‘I am not teaching you golf again,’ said John, pointing accusingly at Ronon.

Ronon shrugged. ‘Good. Wanted to spar with you.’

That actually sounded more appealing than golf. He liked golf and he had intended to teach it to Teyla, but he was just frustrated enough to really feel like sparring. And maybe he’d even beat Ronon for once.

‘He’s teaching you?’ Ronon asked Teyla.

John opened his mouth to reply, but Teyla beat him too it.

‘Yes,’ she said smiling victoriously. John had the sinking feeling she had something to say to him. Teyla was very good at cornering people when she wanted to discuss something difficult with them. Elizabeth had been like that too; John figured it was a diplomatic thing.

Teyla at least let him teach her how to hold the club before she starting talking.

‘It appears as if you have forgotten Rodney can no longer read your mind,’ Teyla said, studying the ocean. ‘He can only judge you on your actions.’

‘I’m not ignoring Rodney!’ John said defensively.

Teyla turned from the ocean and raised an eyebrow at him. ‘In that case I believe it would beneficial for Rodney’s lunch to actually reach him.’

John felt himself blush beet red and was unable to say anything as Teyla struck the golf ball, sending it in a perfect arc way out into the ocean. Sometimes John hated his teammates.

John eventually did take Ronon up on the sparring offer. He got that he looked different, hell he didn’t even like seeing his own reflection, but the stares around the city had turned into side glances that were _supposed_ to be subtle, but didn’t quite succeed and John really needed to expel some frustration.

At first, sparring didn’t even go badly. John actually found himself gaining ground on Ronon, his new speed and strength giving him an advantage he’d never had before. It felt good to get some shots through for a change.

John was enjoying the exercise, the challenge and _definitely_ enjoying the success when pain erupted in John’s left temple and he found himself flat on his back. Damn. He’d let his concentration slip.

John blinked up woozily and saw two Ronons leaning over him. He blinked some more, but they refused to focus in to one Ronon.

‘Ow,’ said John. ‘What was that for?’

‘Thought I’d knock some sense into you,’ Ronon said casually. ‘You need to see McKay.’

‘Oh come on,’ John complained, trying to deflect another accusation of avoiding Rodney. Which he wasn’t. ‘You just wanted to check you could still beat me.’

The two Ronon’s grinned down at him. ‘I can.’

John squinted and the two Ronons wobbled together into one, mildly out of focus, Ronon. Good enough. John held out a hand and Ronon reached out and pulled him up.

‘You still need to speak to McKay,’ said Ronon.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said John and staggered from the room.

John didn’t make another attempt to see Rodney again, despite Teyla and Ronon’s best efforts. Instead he settled down in his quarters to watch a movie, a few new ones had arrived on the Daedalus while he’d been ‘away’ and John was looking forward to a couple of them.

The world was clearly conspiring against John watching them, because he’d only just sat down when the door chimed. He sighed. That would probably be Teyla again, or maybe Carson, because Carson hadn’t been on his case yet.

John opened the door and froze. Rodney stood there with a determined expression on his face, which morphed into anticipation a split second after John opened the door. John shut the door again and retreated inside. He was not having, _could not_ have, the conversation of Rodney quitting the team again. He wasn’t even sure there was a team, but if there was, if somehow he managed to pass his psych evaluation, John couldn’t imagine it without Rodney.

Except now he’d just slammed the door in Rodney’s face. Which was absolutely not sending the right message. John approached the door again, steeled himself, and opened it.

Rodney was still there, looking both put out and indecisive.

‘Hi,’ said John, awkwardly.

‘Uh, hi,’ said Rodney, and gestured at John’s quarters. ‘Can I…?’

John didn’t answer, just stepped to the side and Rodney bustled in before he could change his mind. John closed the door and turned to face him.

‘I had this speech,’ Rodney announced, waving a piece of paper that suggested he had actually written the said speech. ‘But it won’t really work if I’m not right. And I know I’ve got a pretty much flawless track record, but I’m talking about, um, people here, and that’s where my track records not as noble prize worthy. Which you know, or course, I mean, even if you hadn’t known you do now after the… thing.’

Rodney was waving his hands in little circles and John recognised the signs of Rodney getting himself worked up into a ramble that could last an infinite amount of time. ‘Rodney…’

‘No, no, no.’ Rodney had the same expression on his face that he got when he unexpectedly ran into a wraith, which John found more than a little disconcerting given the circumstances. ‘Don’t stop me, I have something to say.’

‘I’m not discussing the team right now!’ snapped John, with much more venom than he’d intended.

‘I said don’t stop me!’ returned Rodney, with equal bite. ‘If you interrupt me this will go badly, well, it will probably go badly anyway, but I mean even worse.’

‘Rodney, get to the point, or whatever ‘this’ is it’s going to go _very_ badly.’ And that sounded like a threat. John was beginning to suspect that no matter how bad Rodney’s people skills were, his might just be worse.

‘The thing is, I think I know you pretty well by now. What with everything.’ Rodney waggled his fingers by the side of his head in a motion that John figured meant the hive mind. ‘And, and well, based on previous evidence you’re not avoiding me because you’re really, really angry, at least I hope not, because otherwise I might get hit.’ Rodney gave a nervous laugh. ‘You’re avoiding me because you’re an idiot and you’re beating yourself up about things that weren’t your fault. And okay, shooting me was kind of your fault, but I bet you’ve been living in here wallowing in guilt and not eating in the mess hall and making Teyla and Ronon worry about you.’

That was all sounding scarily accurate so John felt the impulse to disagree. Strongly. ‘I am not wallowing in guilt.’

Rodney looked triumphant at correctly reading a social situation. ‘I knew it. You’ve been enforcing self-imposed isolation.’

‘What about you then?’ John shot back. ‘Hiding away in your lab by yourself day and night. And FYI I don’t eat in the mess hall because the creepy new wraith eyes aren’t exactly subtle!’

Rodney glared at him, John glared back. Then Rodney’s expression melted into something John couldn’t define.

‘You’re such an idiot,’ he said fondly and stepped forward and hugged John.

John stood there, stunned, then held him back.

‘I’m sorry I shot you,’ John said into Rodney’s shoulder.

‘Good,’ said Rodney, not letting go. Then, after a pause; ‘We’re really dysfunctional aren’t we?’

‘Yeah,’ John agreed. He considered, before deciding that some things needed to be solved. ‘You’re not quitting the team.’

‘I thought you weren’t discussing it?’ asked Rodney.

‘I’m not discussing it.’ John pulled Rodney closer.

‘Fine. But you better pass your psych test.’

‘I can’t just choose whether I pass a psych evaluation,’ complained John.

‘Yes, yes, whatever. Just _try_.’

‘Fine.’

Rodney stepped back and John immediately missed his warmth. ‘No avoiding the mess hall either, people can cope with the wraith eyes. And if they don’t you can just stare at them until you scare them into submission or something.’

John sighed. ‘Radek’s getting me some of those coloured contact things so I can go off world without freaking out all our allies. I could just wear them here too.’

‘No,’ said Rodney. ‘Here we’re a bunch of people who’d adapted to living in the lost city of Atlantis, to the daily threat of aliens and they can adapt to you looking different. If they can’t we can just ship them back to Earth because they’re idiots and they don’t deserve to be here.’

John was oddly touched. ‘I thought I was the idiot?’

Rodney waved a hand dismissively. ‘You’re a different kind of idiot. Personally I think our allies should put up with it as well.’

John snorted. ‘Yeah, because we don’t get shot at enough already.’

‘That’s disturbingly true,’ said Rodney.

‘Yeah,’ agreed John, wondering what else to say.

Rodney stood there awkwardly, clearly having the same problem. ‘So, uh, good to know that’s cleared up and I should maybe be heading back to my lab, you know, to do vital work I shouldn’t have access to.’

Rodney jerked a thumb over his shoulder and shuffled backwards slightly, making no real move to go anywhere.

John scratched the back of his neck and decided to take a chance. ‘I was just about to watch a movie. Wanna join me?’

It was gratifying when Rodney’s face lit up. ‘Yes! I mean, well, I’m sure I’ll be able to fix up all the mistakes Radek makes without me.’

John suppressed a grin and lay down on his bed, propping the laptop up on his legs.

Rodney stared at the empty spot on the bed, unsure.

‘C’mon,’ said John, patting the bed. ‘Or I’ll start it without you.’

Grumbling something about impatience Rodney joined John on the bed, leaning heavily against him. John found himself relieved beyond all measure that Rodney still wanted his company. It was probably about time, past time that John told Rodney how he felt. Of course, Rodney knew from the hive mind, but John didn’t think he’d ever verbalised it.

He knew he loved Rodney, but he wasn’t sure how to say it. Maybe he should just say it outright, maybe that would be the best route. He was pretty sure he was opening them up to an awkward conversation anyway; talking about feelings wasn’t exactly a strong suit for either of them.

‘I…’ mumbled John, before the rest of the words stuck in his throat. Damn.

‘I know you do,’ said Rodney, equal parts exasperation and affection. ‘You don’t have to give yourself an aneurism trying to say it.’

Rodney reached over John and pressed play on the movie. John snorted, enjoying the familiarity of the situation. He and Rodney had spent hours watching, and bitching about, new movies as they arrived on Atlantis, although they hadn’t actually been together until the hive.

John supposed, if he was truly being honest with himself, he did have the hive to thank for his and Rodney’s relationship. And if he really let himself think about it, there had been benefits to the web of minds, both strategically and personally.

But Todd’s hive was gone now and John was… relieved. Even if there had been benefits John could not bring himself to see the hive positively. Todd had killed or changed too many of his people and head taken away too much of his own free will. John had learnt from Carson that none of the drones had regained their minds; they’d either died from the treatment or survived in a vegetative state.

It didn’t surprise John. He’d felt their minds and he’d known there was nothing left of who they had been.

The other hive members, though… John was willing to fight for their rights. He was sure the IOA would take a long time to fully trust them, if they ever did. But there was no future for any of them on Earth, so long as the Stargate program remained secret and John refused to contemplate watching his friends get locked up for something that was not their fault. And John didn’t want to go either. He was prepared to, if the IOA needed someone to blame, but the city was his home. It had been from the moment he set foot in it.

Rodney shifted next to him and grumbled at the movie. John leaned into him and allowed himself to imagine a future on Atlantis.


End file.
